Rebecca Gupta Lawrence was born in Montana and grew up in Idaho. She has lived in Belgium, Ukraine, and Switzerland and speaks French fluently. She completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Colorado (CU) in International Affairs and Environmental Studies. Through her work at CU, as an HIV Tester and Sexual Health Educator & Counselor she became interested in psycho-social determinants of health. After interning at UNAIDS her junior year she wrote her honors thesis on HIV/AIDS Stigma and Discrimination in Ukraine. Her passion for public health led her to continue her studies at Boston University where she earned a Masters in Social Work in 2007 and Master in Public Health in 2008. Her international public health practicum was conducted in India in 2007, where she investigated public health policy on Indian systems of medicine. For the past three years, she has worked as the Research and Evaluation Coordinator at Boston Medical Center with the Medical-Legal Partnership Boston program.