She received her Ph.D. as a Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellow in the Department of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara, with an emphasis certificate from the Department of Feminist Studies. Her research unites interdisciplinary software and game studies approaches with feminist, queer, and critical race theory, investigating specific design practices like digital animation and avatar customization to understand how difference is produced and policed in technological interfaces. Her interests more broadly are in issues of social justice in and around technoculture, popular media, and the digital humanities.