She researches and writes extensively on the Oblate Sisters of Providence. The University of North Carolina Press published her award-winning first book, Persons of Color and Religious at the Same Time: The Oblate Sisters of Providence, 1828-1860 in 2002. She is currently working on a second volume which continues the story of this first Roman Catholic black sisterhood—which celebrated its 185th anniversary in 2014—into the middle of the twentieth century.