She received her B.S. and M.S. in Geography from the Friedrich-Schiller University of Jena, Germany and her Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from Cornell University with emphasis on soil and water engineering, water resources, and environmental geophysics. Before coming to UC Davis in 2013, Helen was a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology at Stockholm University, Sweden where she studied climate change impacts on the hydrologic cycle and glaciers in the Scandinavian Mountains.