She received her Ph.D. from Yale University. Her forthcoming book Sheer Presence: The Veil in Manet’s Paris (University of Minnesota Press, 2006) links the phenomenon of the veil to modernist art practice, medical theories, French imperialism in North Africa, and architectural conditions in late 19th century Paris. She has published articles in Art Bulletin, Nineteenth-Century Contexts, and Woman’s Art Journal and has forthcoming essays in Picturing Power: The New York Chamber of Commerce, Portraiture, and its Uses.