Abby was born and raised in the part of northern Illinois that thinks it is Wisconsin. She was very fortunate to be able to spend part of her high school years as a foreign exchange student in Latvia. This sparked a desire to become something that allowed her to travel, meet people, and use the opportunities and talents she was given to help others. She was very unclear what this career would be and followed a winding trail at the University of Illinois through public health, Arabic, Russian literature, and chemistry to come out the other side in medical school. While studying hard, Abby decided she wanted to go outside more. She subsequently spent much of medical school bugging and baffling her classmates by babbling constantly about how much she wanted to live in Alaska to be closer to nature. Everyone is ecstatic that it finally happened. She now spends her free time following winding trails through the mountains with her trusty husky named Clam and is crossing her fingers for good snow this year to skijor.