I was born and raised in Silver Spring, Maryland and earned my BSN from the University of Maryland at Baltimore (UMAB) in 1986. I was an ED/Trauma/Flight Nurse for 20 years before getting my MSN in 2008 from the University of Tampa. After graduation, I worked in acute care and family practice in Tampa as a FNP.

In 2018 I finished my DNP at Maryville University. I was clinical faculty and the clinical placement coordinator at the University of Tampa for 5 years and then became full time faculty in the MSN program in 2015. Then, in 2016, I became the Program Director of the MSN Program where we had two tracks-Family and Adult/Gerontology.