She holds a MSc degree in nutrition from McGill University and her doctorate in Public Health (Health Promotion focus) from Université de Montréal. She is Kanienkehaka (People of the Mohawk Nation) from the community of Kahnawá:ke, Quebec, Canada. Her research has been primarily community-based with Indigenous communities. She worked on developing the KSDPP Code of Research Ethics in 1994 which bases ethical research on traditional Mohawk decision making, which served as a model for ethical research with Aboriginal peoples in Canada.