Professor Herbert received her B.S. in Sociology and Political Science from University of Oregon in 2006, and her Ph.D in Sociology from University of Michigan in 2016. She was an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Drexel University before joining the Sociology Department at University of Oregon. Her research focuses on law, housing, property, and urban sociology. Her book, A Detroit Story: Urban Decline and the Rise of Property Informality was published with University of California Press in 2021. In this book, she examines the way that de jure illegal uses of property - like squatting, scrapping, and gardening - shape the form of the city, neighborhood conditions, and residents’ well being.

Professor Herbert is currently working on two research projects. She is analyzing data and writing results for a project in Eugene called, "When Home is Illegal: How Law and Governance Shape Informal Housing" which examines the interaction between local regulations, enforcement, and the well-being of residents experiencing unsheltered homelessness. Professor Herbert is also Co-PI on an NSF-funded, mixed-methods project called "Informality and Inequality in the Global North: Regulation, Non-Compliance, and Enforcement in US Land Use and Housing Law" which studies informal infill: housing units produced in violation of local regulations but that provide an important source of affordable housing. She is currently leading the qualitative data collection, studying the interaction between the regulatory environment and the production of informal infill units in Boston and Miami.