I was born and raised in Tucson, Arizona. I earned a bachelor's degree in biology from Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. In 2014, I graduated summa cum laude from Southern California College of Optometry in Fullerton, California. Subsequently, I completed a residency at Kaiser Permanente (formerly Group Health Cooperative) in Tacoma, Washington. For a short while, I worked full time as an optometrist at a large multidisciplinary medical organization in New Orleans, Louisiana. I returned with my family to Washington state, where my husband was raised and where we want our daughter to grow up.