 Healy received her bachelor's degree in psychology (summa cum laude) at Vassar College in 1968.She continued her education at The Rockefeller University where she completed her Ph.D. dissertation titled "Short-term Memory for Temporal and Spatial Order Information" in 1973, under the supervision of Estes.Healy was a member of the faculty of the Department of Psychology at Yale University from 1973 to 1981.