Her mother, Catherine Mary Kickham, was originally from Kilkenny, Ireland; her parents settled in California's Santa Clara Valley and later founded a Celtic goods store there.
[3] As a mathematics student, Cavagnaro loved to watch airplanes while doing her homework, and dreamed of flying but was unable to afford the lessons.
[10] She finally took up flying in 1999,[9] while on a sabbatical after earning tenure at Sewanee and soon after the birth of her first child;[11][10] her initial lessons were a tenth-anniversary gift from her husband.
[14] From 2004 to 2008 she was a visiting professor of aviation systems at the University of Tennessee Space Institute, working as a test pilot to study the stability under icing of a de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter owned by NASA.
[4] She runs the Ace Aerobatic School in Sewanee, Tennessee,[5] is a regular columnist for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, and is a designated examiner for the Federal Aviation Administration.