Tanja grew up in Miami, Florida, but also spent many years living in Norway and Denmark. In 2005, she completed her Master’s degree in Computer Science at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. She then served a Spanish speaking mission in Provo, Utah before beginning her PhD studies in Computer Science at BYU. Tanja’s research in IDeA Labs focused on multi-agent dynamical systems in market power analyses, for which she received a National Science Foundation graduate fellowship (link to news article). Nevertheless, Tanja left the program in 2010, after meeting her husband while visiting the University of Maryland as part of IDeA Labs’ visiting scholar program.