 in computer and information science and psychology from the University of Oregon.She worked at Tektronix for 15 years as a software engineer before moving on to Instantiations (founded by her husband Allen Wirfs-Brock), which was acquired by Digitalk which merged with Parc Place Systems to become ParcPlace-Digitalk in 1995.She was the Chief Technologist for the professional services organization of a Smalltalk language vendor.