She specializes in the legal, cultural and economic history of Muslim Africa. She is the author of a prize winning book about the organization of trans-Saharan camel caravan trade Africa (On Trans-Saharan Trails: Islamic Law, Trade Networks and Cross-Cultural Exchange in Western Africa. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), and an edited a volume on the trans-Saharan book trade (with Graziano Krtli, The Trans-Saharan Book Trade: Arabic Literacy, Manuscript Culture, and Intellectual History in Islamic Africa (Leiden: Brill, 2011). Her articles cover a wide range of topics including economic history, Islamic legal history, Muslim women.s rights, colonial West Africa.