 Tirrell received her bachelor's in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1980 and went on to earn her doctorate in philosophy (with a dissertation focused on metaphor) from the University of Pittsburgh in 1986 under the direction of Robert Brandom.After receiving her doctorate, she accepted an appointment as an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, receiving tenure and Associate Professorship status in 1994.In 1993, Tirrell accepted an appointment as Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, before being promoted to Associate Professor - a position she occupied until July 2017.