She received her BS degree in materials engineering at Brown University in 2001, followed by MS and PhD degrees in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University, in 2003 and 2006, respectively. Her research interests are in the area of mechanical properties of materials at the nanoscale, including understanding the deformation mechanisms at the nanoscale using ex situ and in situ TEM testing methods and understanding the stress evolutions in semiconductor devices as well as in battery and solar cell nanostructured materials.