I grew up in North Dakota and attended college at Dakota Wesleyan University, in Mitchell, South Dakota. Although I greatly valued my time spent at my undergraduate university, I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to participate in a variety of programs outside of Dakota Wesleyan. These programs include two summer programs (Summer Math Program for Women at Carleton College and a National Science Foundation summer program in mathematics research at Indiana University) as well as two academic year experiences (two semesters abroad in Budapest Hungary as part of Budapest Semesters in Mathematics and one semester at the Pennsylvania State University as part of its Mathematics Advanced Study Semesters program). My master's and doctoral work were completed at Indiana University, where I also taught a variety of mathematics courses. My thesis work was in combinatorics, and my dissertation title is "Relationships between shellability, vertex decomposability, and h-vectors of simplicial complexes."