Prior to Joining the SPAA faculty, she taught at Northern Illinois University in the School of Public and Global Affairs and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania in the School of Social Policy and Practice. Her research and teaching interests are in the areas of voluntarism, philanthropy, nonprofit management, and social inequality, Her research has been published in a number of scholarly outlets such as: Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly , Social Indicators Research, Nonprofit Management and Leadership, and Journal of Environmental Planning and Management.