She received her Ph.D. and M.A. in History from the University of Iowa and two Bachelor of Arts degrees in History and Social Science-Secondary Education from the University of California at Irvine. Her research focuses on the history of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, specifically the role of women in performing ethnic identity, transborder trade systems, foodways, and cultural networks. Her current project focuses on the persistent roles of women in shaping daily politics in the North American Southwest after U.S. annexation in 1848. Her book manuscript documents how, after the U.S.-Mexico War ended, the home was a gendered, and often invisible, space from which women could protect their ethnic identities, make claims to cultural citizenship, and resist Americanization.