She earned her bachelor of art’s degree from Grinnell College in 2005 with majors in Chemistry (with honors) and French (with honors). She completed her doctoral degree in 2009 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Environmental Chemistry & Technology for her thesis entitled Source Apportionment of Carbonaceous Aerosol in Different Regions of the World. She worked as a Senior Scientist at the Carlsbad Environmental Monitoring and Research Center, a division of the Institute for Energy and the Environment at New Mexico State University, where she managed environmental and organic chemistry departments and conducting research on the environment surrounding a nuclear waste repository.