A specialist in early-twentieth century American art, her research explores the influence of anarchism on the development of abstraction. She also writes about Dada, Duchamp, and humor. She completed her B.A. at the University of Florida in European Art and History, her M.A. in Art History at Hunter College and received her PhD from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She has previously taught at Queens College, Franklin & Marshall, and Millsaps College and taught graduate seminars at the Institut national d'histoire de l'art, Paris, where she served as the Terra Foundation for American Art postdoctoral fellow.