As a young child with a curious and active mind, she was influenced by her father, an amateur photographer, and an uncle, a semi-professional photographer who taught her early camera skills.

Her interest in science was evident even in high school, where she received Honorable Mention in the Canada Wide Science Fair, and directed her camera to the natural world around her. Summers were spent as a research assistant for the Federal Department of Fisheries and Forestry where she worked on genetics of eye pigments of the spruce budworm. She continued her work in the sciences, taking a combined undergraduate degree in agriculture and zoology at the University of Guelph. Using her camera to document scientific activities for her undergraduate courses, she progressed to developing new techniques for photomicroscopy with a fluorescence microscope, receiving a MS from the University of Western Ontario in experimental Pathology. She completed her doctorate in Neurobiology at the University of Toronto where, working with light and electron microscopes, she photographed thousands of specimens, then selected, developed and printed this record in support of her thesis. Her black and white and colour photographs have been presented in lectures and published in scientific journals.

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