She earned a BA from Brown University, an MA from Georgetown, and a Ph.D. from Harvard. She was a Fulbright Scholar in Spain, and has held fellowships sponsored by the Center for Arabic Studies Abroad at the American University in Cairo, the United States Institute of Peace, and Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. She is the author of Occupied Voices: Stories of Everyday Life from the Second Intifada (Nation Books, 2003), a Washington Post and Boston Globe Bestseller, and Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement (Cambridge University Press, 2011), named Foreign Policy Magazine’s runner-up for best book on the Middle East in 2011, as well as numerous commentaries or narrative essays for general audiences.