She graduated from the University of Virginia in 1987 with a BA degree in biology, from Emory University in 1992 with her masters in physical therapy and received her clinical doctorate in physical therapy in 2003. She has a specialty certification in Neurology through the American Board of Physical Therapy. She spent nine years working as a staff physical therapist at the Emory Center for Rehabilitation Medicine, primarily in the inpatient neurology unit. She has been a project coordinator for two multi-site, NIH-funded national clinical trials – the EXCITE (Extremity Constraint Induced Therapy Evaluation) RCT and the ICARE (Interdisciplinary Collaborative Arm Rehabilitation Evaluation) RCT.