Apesoa-Varano earned Bachelor of Arts degrees in Spanish and Latin-American Literature and Sociology at State University of New York, Oneonta, in 1997. She earned a Master of Arts in Sociology from California State University, Sacramento, in 2000 and a Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology from UC Davis in 2008. Apesoa-Varano was a Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health (BIRCWH) Scholar, part of a prestigious National Institute of Health program, from 2011 to 2012. Prior to joining the School of Nursing, she was a postdoctoral scholar in the UC Davis School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences where her research focused on barriers to depression care in diverse, older men’s health.