She earned her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her primary areas of interest are quantitative methodology, prevention research, policy evaluation, and adolescent risk behaviors including substance use, risky sexual behaviors, and suicidal behaviors. She has more than 17 years of research experience on many NIH funded projects in the field of adolescent risk behaviors, both in U.S. and global settings. Specifically, since 2007 her research has focused on HIV prevention among orphan adolescents in Sub-Saharan Africa.