Her research examines the intersection of class, gender and ethnicity in the construction of national identity in colonial India. Her book Men, Women, and Domestics: Articulating Middle-Class Identity in Colonial Bengal (Delhi and New York: Oxford University Press, 2004) employs the lens of the employer-servant relationships to examine the construction of national identity in colonial Bengal. She has received many grants and awards, including NEH-funded American Institute of Indian Studies Senior Research Fellowship and the Whiting Fellowship from Brooklyn College for excellence in teaching. Her current research is on the history of children and childhood in colonial India. She has articles and reviews published in History Compass, the Journal of Social History, Journal of Asian Studies and Gender and History. She received her B.A. and M.A. from the University of Calcutta, India.