My research interests have been shaped by my training in both History and Anthropology at Penn, and focus on the colonial history of southern Mexico and Guatemala, especially rural political economy and Maya ethnohistory.  My first book, Soldiers of the Virgin: The Moral Economy of a Colonial Maya Rebellion, is a study of the Tzeltal Revolt of 1712 in highland Chiapas, a project that also led to an essay, "Women, Rebellion, and the Moral Economy of Maya Peasants in Colonial Mexico," in Indian Women in Early Mexico, edited by Susan Schroeder, Stephanie Wood, and Robert Haskett. 

More recently, I have been studying the colonial cotton economy, the mobilization of Maya labor (especially women), and the participation of entrepreneurial-minded native elites.  I also have a long-standing interest in the history of anthropology, and have written a series of conference papers on ideas about race, history, culture and citizenship in early 19th century Maya studies.