[1] She also is a professor of Russian studies at the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies and is affiliated with University of Washington's Comparative History of Ideas Department.
[1] Her research focuses include Russia, the former Soviet Union, religion in the Soviet Union, Soviet foreign policy, Russian foreign relations, the Cold War, and twentieth-century Spain.
She attended Lafayette College, transferring to the University of Pennsylvania in 1981 and graduating summa cum laude with a bachelor's in history.
In 1989, she earned her PhD in history from the University of California, Berkeley.
From 1990 to 1992, she worked as a lecturer at Stanford University before being hired as a professor at the University of Washington, where she received a dual appointment in the department of history and the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies.