She is also co-founder and co-director of the Project on Public Leadership and Action, co-director of the Wellesley in Washington program, and was a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Scholar at Harvard University (2009-2011). She specializes in the politics of social policy, focusing particularly on the role that civic associations play in mobilizing participation in politics and policy advocacy. Her recently published book, How Organizations Develop Activists: Civic Associations and Leadership in the 21st Century (Oxford University Press 2014) examines the strategies that the most effective civic associations use to engage activists and develop civic leaders in health and environmental politics.