Her primary areas of interest are social theory, the sociology of culture, cognition, organizations, and qualitative methods. Her book At the Chef’s Table: Culinary Creativity in Elite Restaurants (Stanford University Press, 2015), based on interviews with chefs and observation in restaurant kitchens, is about the creative work of chefs at top restaurants in New York and San Francisco. Her article (with Adam Green) “Thinking about Food and Sex: Deliberate Cognition in the Routine Practices of a Field” (Sociological Theory, 2013) engages with field theory and cognitive research to develop a model that accurately addresses the nature of routine practices. She has also conducted comparative historical research on the cognitive and epistemic foundations of cuisine. Her research on cuisine has been published in Theory & Society, Sociological Forum, and Collapse, among other publications.