She possesses dual expertise in the law and religious studies. She earned her PhD in Church History at the University of Chicago, and her JD at the DePaul College of Law. She has worked both in academia and in museum education. Her teaching and research address issues in religion, law and politics. She has authored articles on a wide variety of topics ranging from martyrs and mystics to legal rights and justice. She recently published a biography of Sojourner Truth, a 19th century emancipated slave who became a leading abolitionist and suffragist around the time of the Civil War.