She received her PhD in Communication and Rhetoric from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She is co-author of Folklore, Horror Stories, and the Slender Man: The Development of an Internet Mythology, which interrogates the Slender Man myth as a mode of folklore in the digital age. Other areas of research include video games, identity, and feminism. She has been published in Critical Studies in Media Communication; The Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media; Feminist Media Studies; New Media & Society; Games and Culture; and Information, Communication & Society as well as several essay collections.