She holds a PhD in musicology from McGill University, and she has taught courses on the history of western music, opera in the 21st century, music and politics, music since 1900, popular music, and historiography. Her research explores various facets of American musical culture—the role of popular songs in presidential campaigns, the reception of music prodigies in the age of reality television, and the untold history of music performance on the “freak” show stage in the 19th century. Her research on music and electoral politics appears in the summer 2015 issue of Music & Politics and the May 2016 issue of the Journal of the Society for American Music. Her work on Jackie Evancho appears in the edited volume Voicing Girlhood in Popular Music: Performance, Authority, Authenticity (Routledge, 2016).