She received her B.A. in Latin American Literature from Smith College in 1998, an M.A. in Performance Studies from NYU in 2002, and her Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literatures from Cornell University in 2005. Before joining the Barnard faculty in 2006, she was a research associate at FLACSO (Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales) in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, where she developed and taught a performance studies concentration. At Barnard College she teaches courses on Caribbean literature, visual and performance arts, as well as courses about gender and sexualities in the Americas.