Johnsrude did her undergraduate studies in psychology at Queens University, graduating in 1989, and went on for graduate studies to McGill University, where she received her Ph.D. in 1997 under the supervision of Brenda Milner.[1][2] After postdoctoral studies at University College London, she became a scientist at the Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge, England,[1] where she studied the relationship between neuroanatomy and the ability to be affected by operant conditioning[5] as well as the brain structures active during speech recognition.[6] She returned to Queens University as a faculty member in 2004.[1]