[3] Her father, Thaddeus Spratlen, was a professor in the Department of Marketing at the University of Washington’s School of Business.

As a younger man, Thaddeus Spratlen also applied to join the Foreign Service, but was blocked by more racially restrictive hiring policies by the State Department at that time.

She also has master's degrees from the United States Army War College and the University of California, Berkeley.

She has also served as Assistance Coordinator at the U.S. embassy in Moscow (2002–2004), Special Assistant to the Counselor of the Department of State (2005–2006), Director of Central Asian Affairs (2006–2007), Director of Western European Affairs (2007–2008), and Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. embassy in Astana, Kazakhstan.

Most recently, she was named as the Department of State's official overseeing the response to the so-called "Havana syndrome", but was replaced after being accused of failing to take the incidents seriously enough.