She completed her Ph.D. at Columbia University in New York. Her research focuses on the transformation of city space and jurisdiction in the early modern period, concentrating on Lille, a Flemish city on the border of France and the Low Countries, between the 14th and 17th centuries. She is currently completing her book manuscript, City Walls and Competing Enclosures: Jurisdiction, Territory, and Power in the Southern Low Countries, 1384-1667.