She received an A.B. magna cum laude from Bryn Mawr College in 1985, a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1989, and a Ph.D. with a specialization in ethics and biomedical ethics from the Department of Religious Studies at Rice University in 1997. Her dissertation on managed care was published by the Indiana University Press in 2001 (The Ethics of Managed Care: A Pragmatic Approach). She later completed a fellowship in Clinical Ethics at The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Her current research interests include the ethical, legal, and social implications of new genomic technologies and ethical and policy questions related to problems of cost, quality, and access in health care. She also remains interested in the intersection of religion and spirituality and biomedical ethics.