She earned her Bachelors degree in physics and math from Dartmouth College in 2006 and her DPhil in astrophysics from Oxford University, UK in 2009 where she was a Rhodes Scholar. Since then, she has done postdoctoral research work at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and the University of Toledo, Ohio. Her research interests focus on star formation in nearby galaxies, focusing most specifically on elliptical galaxies, which were not widely recognized as forming stars until recently. The question of whether they form stars in the same manner as the more actively star-forming spirals remains open.