She serves as Director of Graduate Studies for the Department of Political Science. She also has an appointment in the Truman School of Public Affairs at the University of Missouri. In 2015, she served as President of the International Studies Association – Midwest. Along with Cooper Drury, she is also the 2016 Program Chair for the International Studies Association Annual Convention. From the fall 2009 to the summer of 2012, she was an assistant professor at Kansas State University. In May of 2009, she received Ph.D. from Emory University.Her research focuses on the behavior of international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) and their interactions with states, local populations, and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs). She is also interested in human rights/security, development, quantitative methodologies, formal modeling, and conflict more generally.