She received her BS in zoology from the University of the Philippines in 1986 and her PhD in biomedical sciences in 1997 from the University of California, San Diego, where she studied signaling in T lymphocytes in Michael Karin’s laboratory. Her interest in immunosuppressants led her to the laboratory of Michael N. Hall, where she started her research on TOR in both yeast and mammals as a post-doctoral fellow at the Biozentrum, University of Basel, Switzerland.