When I started high school, I wanted to be a pharmacist. By the end of high school I wanted to be a doctor and decided to double major in molecular and cellular biology and biomedical biology at the University of Arizona. While there I did bench lab research on Alzheimer's Disease, Aging, and HPV's implications in cervical cancer for about 3 years. Working with HPV helped me learn that I wanted to pursue public health. After graduating, I worked at the health department for my county and then started my MPH in Global Health - Infectious Disease at Emory.

During my MPH program, I also taught biology lab to about 150 undergraduate biology students.