Her research focuses on the political, cultural, and socioeconomic interactions between states and indigenous communities in Costa Rica and Colombia. She earned her BA and MA from the Universidad de Costa Rica, and her PhD from the University of Pittsburgh (in 2013). Her book La frontera indígena de la Gran Talamanca, 1840–1930 appeared in the spring of 2014, published by the Editoriales Universitarias Públicas Costarricenses, and won the 2013–2014 Ancora Prize for History, from Grupo Nación (based in Costa Rica). Currently she is working on a manuscript about how indigenous communities in southwestern Colombia negotiated their autonomy in the early twentieth century.