Dr. Caldwell received her undergraduate degree in recombinant gene technology from the State University of New York at Fredonia and her MS and PhD degrees in biotechnology and cell, molecular and developmental bology, respectively, from The University of Tennessee. While at Tennessee, she was a four-time recipient of the Oak Ridge National Lab-UT Science Alliance Teaching/Research Award and received the Chancellor’s Award for Extraordinary Professional Promise.

Following receipt of her doctorate, she held post-doctoral research appointments at The Rockefeller University and Columbia University in New York, where she was named the recipient of a Revson Fellowship and a National Research Service Award recipient from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Dr. Caldwell has since been the recipient of grants from the NIH, Dystonia Medical Research Foundation, Bachmann-Strauss Dystonia and Parkinson Foundation and The Parkinson’s Institute, as well contracts with the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry.

In 2005, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and National Academy of Sciences named Dr. Caldwell an Education Fellow in the Life Sciences. She was selected as a recipient of a Young Investigator’s Award at the 2006 International Congress of The Movement Disorders Society in Kyoto, Japan.