[1] She studied mechanical engineering at the University of Southern California and was the first member of her family to go to college.

[1] She moved to the University of California, Berkeley for her doctoral studies, earning a Master's in 2004 and a PhD in 2007.

[3] Her PhD looked at heat resistant materials and was supported by an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation fellowship.

She was awarded an Early Career Faculty Space Tech Research Grant from NASA in 2012.

[5] Since 2014 she has led the EXtreme Environment Microsystems Laboratory (X-Lab) at Stanford University.