She received her B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Minnesota and her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees at MIT. She worked at MIT Lincoln Laboratory from 2005 to 2009 on topics including cryogenic Yb:YAG lasers, beam combining, and mode-locked diode lasers. Since 2009, she has run a group focused on optical devices and lasers at CU Boulder. Her current research interests include ultrafast lasers, nonlinear optics, mid-infrared materials, spectroscopy, orbital angular momentum and adaptive optical devices. She is the recipient of an Air Force Young Investigator Award (2010), R & D 100 Award (2012), an NSF CAREER award (2016), the CU Provost Achievement Award (2016) and is an Associate Editor for IEEE Photonics Journal.