Afton grew up in Seattle, Washington, and went to college at the College of Wooster in Ohio, where she double majored in Mathematics and Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. She is currently an MSTP student at the Penn State College of Medicine in her graduate training years, studying the mathematics of cancer resistance in Dr. Raymond Hohl and Dr. Andrew Read’s labs. Outside of school, she enjoys knitting, sewing, and biking, and is learning how to garden with her roommates.