She has a secondary appointment within the UAB Division of Preventive Medicine. She received her undergraduate degree in Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Maryland Baltimore County where she was a Meyerhoff Scholar. She then graduated from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and completed residency training in Pediatrics at Duke University Medical Center. Following residency, her postdoctoral training included three unique fellowships (at Harvard Medical School and associated hospitals): 1) Adolescent Medicine; 2) the Commonwealth Fund Harvard Minority Health Policy Fellowship; and the 3) Pediatric Health Services Research Fellowship. During her fellowship training, she obtained a Master’s degree in Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health.