She received her D.V.M from the University of California, Davis before going on to pursue a postdoctorate on prion diseases at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. Her current research looks at both the genetic and environmental factors that influence the transmission of prion diseases, including Chronic wasting disease (CWD), Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD).