She received her doctorate in 2011 at the University of California, Irvine where she was a Jack and Suzanne Peltason Fellow of the Center for the Study of Democracy. Her research focuses on the sources of women’s political empowerment and its effects on political representation, social values, democratization and governance across the globe. Shehaspublished on these and related topics in several peer-reviewed journals including Comparative Politics, the European Sociological Review, Politics and Gender, the International Sociological Review, and Social Indicators Research.