She had her MD degree, her Residency in Radiology, and her Ph.D. in Neuroscience at the State University of Campinas, Brazil. At her post-doctoral training at Johns Hopkins University, she became an expert on diffusion tensor imaging and several techniques of imaging post-processing and computational analysis. Her research interests include the development, improvement, and application of these techniques to study the normal and abnormal brain development, to explore anatomic-functional correlations, and to create automated methods for imaging classification and diagnosis.