Auclair was born and raised in
Jonquière, Québec in a
low-income family. While she originally intended to pursue her
Bachelor of Science abroad, her student visa was lost in the mail. Auclair thus completed her
Bachelor of Science in chemistry at
Université du Québec à Chicoutimi and received the
Governor General's Academic Medal for graduating with the highest grade point average. Following her undergraduate degree, Auclair enrolled at the
University of Alberta for her PhD in
organic chemistry. As both Auclair and her mother took a cholesterol-lowering agent for high blood pressure, her research focused on understanding how fungi naturally synthesized
lovastatin. This resulted in her discovering the first enzyme to catalyze a
Diels-Alder reaction. Following her PhD, Auclair completed a
post-doctoral fellowship in
pharmaceutical chemistry at the
University of California, San Francisco from 1999 to 2001. ==Career==