Dr. Macdonald joined UK's Political Science department in Fall 2023, where she teaches classes on American politics and legislative politics. Before coming to UK, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Social Media & Politics at NYU and received her PhD in Political Science from Emory University. 

Her research centers around how American political elites, such as candidates for office or interest groups, publicly communicate, with a focus on their use of new technologies like social media. She studies what these elites do, why they do it, and whether they benefit from these behaviors or not.