She received a Bachelor of Arts in biochemistry from Mount Holyoke College and a Ph.D in molecular biology and genetics from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She continued her research training in malaria as a postdoctoral fellow at the New York University School of Medicine. She received postdoctoral fellowships from the Irvington Institute of Immunology and the Life Sciences Research Foundation. Her current research focuses on signalling pathways of Plasmodium’s pre-erythrocytic stages. She has identified the role of cGMP signalling in the parasite’s infection of the liver and its subsequent intra-hepatic development. Her research is supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense and the American Heart Association.