She has both a JD and PhD (in Late Modern European History) from the University of California, Berkeley, and she worked as a Federal Public Defender in San Francisco before attending graduate school. Her research interests center on 20th century Italy. Her 2010 book, War, Massacre, and Recovery in Central Italy, 1943-1948, treats the WWII experience in Italy, and the social and political transition from war to peace and from Fascism to democracy. Her current research (funded in part by a Fulbright Research grant) examines crime and society in Fascist Italy.