Alicia is a U.S. Historian of California history, the American West, and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands with an emphasis on race, gender, sexuality, and the history of medicine. Her book, From Back Alley to the Border: Criminal Abortion in California, 1920-1969, was the first to study the experiences of providers of illegal abortions and their patients in California and the West. Her current research explores intersections of race and public health in the California borderlands.