She received her bachelor’s degree from Princeton, her Ph.D. in Biophysics at Harvard, and did her post-doc at the Center for Studies in Physics and Biology at Rockefeller University in New York. In 2008, when she was still at Rockefeller, she received the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award at the Scientific Interface, a $500,000 grant designed to help bridge advanced postdoctoral training and the first three years of faculty service.