Mazereeuw, who is part Dutch and part Japanese, grew up in Malaysia, South Korea, and Singapore. She received a Bachelor of Arts in Sculpture and Environmental Science from Wesleyan University. While in college in 1995, she visited Kobe, Japan where her parents had recently moved after the Great Hanshin Earthquake. She then earned her Master in Architecture and Landscape Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD). For her thesis, Mazereeuw designed an emergency infrastructure system as part of a subway station design, akin to the Urban Risk Lab's PrepHub project. Much of her research interest centers on coastal areas in the Pacific Rim of Fire.