She recently conducted a five-year observation period of the practices surrounding breast feeding in Bronx, New York City. She focused on one public hospital to observe and examined how health care and health-seeking for women who work in low-paying service-center jobs was affected by time and scheduling issues. She is currently working with social scientists to synthesize the information she collected. In April 2004 she was awarded a grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation to do research for her dissertation. She conducted participant observation in Havana, Cuba for her dissertation: ""Reproducing the Revolution: Gender, Kinship, and the State in Contemporary Cuba"," which was supervised by Dr. Rayna Rapp.