She received a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Aeronautical Engineering from Stanford. She has been working at the interface of engineering, medicine, and biology for over 15 years - designing, building, and implementing new quantitative microscopy, proteomic, and computational tools to understand fundamental principles in cell signaling and differentiation, especially in the context of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. Her current research focuses on understanding how noise, feedback, circadian rhythms, and cell cycle inputs can be harnessed to dynamically control cell differentiation using adipocyte (fat cell) differentiation as a model system.