Helena graduated from Willamette University in 2021 with a B.S. in Chemistry with a concentration in Biochemistry.

In the Battle Lab, her work focused on determining more accurate and accessible mathematical models that can be used to analyze thermal denaturation data and provide not only a transition temperature (melting temperature) but also provide thermodynamic values for the free energy, enthalpy and entropy of the transition to help better describe the effects of sequence changes on the stability and folding of the resulting quadruplex structures.