Her research focus is the intersection among religion, gender, urbanization, public good, ethnicity, and charisma. She is especially interested in how people cross religious, ethnic, rural-urban and other boundaries. Her teaching interests at Duke Kunshan include ethnography of China, ethnicity and diversity, and urbanization and changing religious landscapes.
She is the editor (with Robert Weller) of "It Happens Among People: Resonances and Extensions of the Work of Fredrik Barth" (Berghahn 2019) and the co-author (with Robert Weller, C.