She received her PhD from Harvard University in 2007 and a BS from the University of California at Berkeley in 2000, where she also worked as a Miller Fellow from 2007-2010. In 2010-2011 she was a Hubble Fellow at Columbia University. The recipient of Harvard University's Fireman Prize for an outstanding PhD dissertation and of a recent NSF CAREER award for early-career scientists, her work has been featured on NPR, in the Christian Science Monitor, Astronomy Now, and in a feature article in UC Berkeley's California magazine.