She received her Master’s degree in Economic Psychology and her PhD in Health Psychology at Tilburg University, The Netherlands. In 2001, she completed a three-year postdoctoral fellowship in Endocrinology and Medical Psychology at Duke University Medical Center. For her work she was awarded the 2007 Pediatric Junior Investigator Award of the International Foundation for Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders (IFFGD) and a 2008 IFFGD Research Grant.