Her research focuses on the intersections of communication, culture, health and identity using qualitative research methods. Her projects have a focus on food within those intersections, such as hunger-relief, media representations of food and nutrition, and public discourse of food issues. Her research projects in the past have also included such topics as pedagogy, communication and mental health, international and transracial child adoptions, memory and cultural identity, and the culture of college drinking. Her teaching experience includes a variety of lower- and upper-division communication courses, several of which have a service-learning component, in a range of formats, at five different institutions. She values working at a university that emphasizes teaching and learning and that encourages critical thinking.