She completed her Ph.D. in Human Development & Family Studies at Cornell University in 2004, and a post-doctoral fellowship with the Cornell Institute for Translational Research on Aging in 2007. Prior to attending Cornell, she developed the Life-Writing protocol used in her research from 1993-1996 as her master’s thesis intervention project which won the Jack Boozer Community Development Award (Emory University, 1995) and the Mary K. Mobley Award for Academic Excellence and Significant Community Concern (Emory University, 1996).