[3] Mink was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1951[4] and graduated from Dundee Community High School in 1969.
degree (1974) in Planetary Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
She worked at Cornell University from 1976 to 1979 as an astronomical software developer.
[8] She has written a number of commonly used software packages for astrophysics, including WCSTools and RVSAO.
[13][15] She was a co-organiser of the 2015 Inclusive Astronomy conference at Vanderbilt University.