She received her Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology. Since she completed her postdoctoral training at Stanford University in 1999, she has worked to understand the etiology and mechanisms of aortic aneurysms. Through the study of a murine Marfan syndrome (MFS) model, she has shown that smooth muscle cells (SMCs) switched prematurely to a more mature contractile phenotype at postnatal day 7 in MFS mice. Her research interests are to determine the molecular mechanisms of abnormal SMC phenotypic switching and its role in aneurysm formation in MFS.