Cernich graduated from St. Mary's Dominican High School in 1993.[1] She earned a B.A. at Loyola University New Orleans where she completed an honors undergraduate thesis under advisor Catherine Wessinger.[2] Cernich completed a predoctoral research fellowship in outcomes measurement at the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation, funded by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research. In 2002, she earned a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Fairleigh Dickinson University.[3] Her dissertation was titled Predictors of post-injury substance use in traumatic brain injury: Neuropsychological and motivational variables. Neil A. Massoth was her doctoral advisor.[4] Cernich was a postdoctoral researcher in cognitive neurosciences at the MedStar National Rehabilitation Hospital.[3]