She received her A.B. from the University of Chicago and her Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. Her major area of research is political violence, terrorism, and political development with an emphasis on Latin America and Southern Europe. She is the author of Terrorism and Democratic Stability Revisited Manchester University Press, 2008, and Guns, Drugs, and Development: Violence in Colombia, University of Texas Press 2009 (with Sheila Amin Gutiérrez de Piñeres and Kevin Curtin).