She has received many awards and grants including the prestigious Hubbard Hutchinson Fellowship, a Frederick M. Peyser prize in painting, and a Steamboat Scholarship. Locally, she has participated in artist residencies at Pyramid Atlantic and the Henry Luce III Center for Arts and Religion and has received a Bethesda Painting Award. She grew up in Arkansas and attended Interlochen Arts Academy for high school before receiving her undergraduate degree with highest honors from Williams College. She has also studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art and in Paris. She worked briefly as a curatorial assistant at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, and now teaches painting in DC at the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop and LivingSocial.