She was an expert in the social and cultural history of modern China, charismatic global Christianity, and women and religion.

[2] Her Chinese great-grandfather, Gin Gor Ju, came to the United States from Guangdong province and settled in Utah.

While researching and writing her dissertation, Miraculous Mundane: The True Jesus Church and Chinese Christianity in the Twentieth Century, she lived in Xiamen, China, and was an affiliate of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences from 2009 to 2010.

She served as an associate editor of the Mormon Studies Review and as a frequent contributor on topics of religion.

[5][6] In 2019, she had her book China and the True Jesus: Charisma and Organization in a Chinese Christian Church published by Oxford University Press.