She earned her PhD in history at UCLA, where her dissertation, “Les Citoyennes Marseillaises: Women and Political Change during the French Revolution,” won the Mary Wollstonecraft Dissertation Award. Talamante's other numerous honors and awards include a residency fellowship at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France; a National Endowment for the Humanities Landmarks of American History and Culture grant; and two French American Cultural Exchange Tournée Festival of French Films grants. While at the Dora Maar House, she is working on a collaborative manuscript with French colleagues titled Sex, Scandal and Power Relations: From Marseille to Venice, Conjugal Disturbances, Elites and Society in the Eighteenth Century.