[1] She was educated at Nashoba Regional High School, graduated in 1987,[2] and received a Presidential Scholarship.

[3] In 1991, Gerken graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University with a Bachelor of Arts in history after completing a 123-page long senior thesis titled "Stepping Out of the Bounds of Womanhood: An Analysis of the Popular Image of Women and Women's Experiences during World War II".

[4] She was the recipient of the university's Dodds Prize, given to top seniors, and the Kenneth C. Harris Award for research.

She graduated in 1994 with a Juris Doctor, summa cum laude, and membership in the Order of the Coif.

[9] She became dean of Yale Law School in 2017, and in the same year she was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.