Dr. Bernstein received a BA in international relations at Brown University and a PhD in comparative politics at Georgetown University. She was the recipient of a Zeit Foundation Settling into Motion PhD grant to support her dissertation work examining local-level immigrant integration policymaking in the U.S. and Europe.  At the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown, she worked on a number of projects concerning U.S. immigration policy, work force trends, international migration management, and migration and development. She has also worked as a consultant for the United Nations Population Fund and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.