Dr. Olson received her BA in Psychology and African and Afro-American Studies from Washington University in St. Louis and her MA and PhD from Harvard University before beginning her faculty career at Yale University, moving to the University of Washington in 2013. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Arcus Foundation, and the Satterberg Foundation amongst other sources. Dr. Olson has won several early career awards including the Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformational Early Career Contributions from the Association for Psychological Science, the International Social Cognition Network's Early Career Award, and the SAGE Young Scholar's Award.