She received a BSc in Industrial/Labor Relations from Cornell University, an MBA from Dartmouth College, and an MA and PhD in Sociology from Brown University. She studies how entrepreneurs reclaim abandoned spaces to make cities more livable. More speciﬁcally, she examines the discourse practices entrepreneurs engage in that help them sustain their projects over the long time periods in which they occur (often 10 years or more). In doing so, her research contributes to a better understanding of how these projects come to be, what impacts they have on the cities they are in, and other, later projects trying to emulate their success.