Biteen was born in
Montreal. Her father worked in Human Resources and her mother was a librarian. She stayed at Caltech for her doctoral research, working alongside
Harry Atwater and
Nathan Lewis. Her doctoral research considered nanoparticle
plasmonics and
quantum dot optoelectronics. She joined
Stanford University as a postdoctoral scholar, where she worked on
super-resolution imaging with
William E. Moerner. As a postdoc she developed photoactivated localization microscopy systems to image
Caulobacter crescentus, acquiring the first images of
MreB, a protein found in bacteria. == Research and career ==