After graduating as salutatorian from Valdosta High School,[4] she became a student of materials science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she received a bachelor's degree in 2002 and a Ph.D. in 2007 under the supervision of Jagadeesh Moodera.
[2] She received the Outstanding Senior Thesis award of the MIT Department of Materials Science and Engineering for her bachelor's thesis, Ferromagnetic Europium Oxide as a Spin-Filter Material.
[5] Her doctoral dissertation, Europium oxide as a perfect electron spin filter,[1] was based on research applying magnetic materials in spintronics.
[6] She became a postdoctoral researcher and then staff scientist at the Argonne National Laboratory before joining Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (HGST) in 2011.
[2] She was named as a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) in 2024, after a nomination from the APS Topical Group on Magnetism and Its Applications, "for innovative contributions in synthesis and characterization of novel ultrathin magnetic films and interfaces, and tailoring their properties for optimal performance, especially in magnetic data storage and spin-transport devices".