She is a former U.S. Border Patrol Agent trainee and Level 4 juvenile counselor for adjudicated youth. Her research agenda focuses on issues related to interpersonal violence, with a specific emphasis on domestic violence and homicide, child abuse and neglect, mental health, life-course criminology, neuropsychological vulnerabilities, capital punishment, gendered pathways to crime and victimization, parricide, and outcome and process evaluations of problem-solving courts and criminal justice programs.