Tawk received her doctorate in health policy and administration from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2010. Her dissertation work converged around understanding why patients fail to comply with treatment, such as those who left the hospital against medical advice from U.S. general hospitals. She holds a master’s degree in health policy and administration from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a master’s degree in biology from the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. In 2012, she completed two years of post-doctoral training where she focused on demonstrating the value-proposition of pharmaceutical compounds using economic, humanistic and clinical outcomes. Her research interests include health disparities in cancer outcomes, mental health and quality of care.