MacLean was an undergraduate at
Stanford University, where she graduated in 1986 with a double major in biological sciences and mechanical engineering. She earned a master's degree in mechanical engineering at to the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1988. After two years working as an engineer at the
University of Utah, she returned to MIT for a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, completed in 1996. She was a researcher for
Interval Research Corporation from 1996 to 2000. In 2000, she became an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia (UBC); she has been a full professor there since 2010. At UBC, she is the co-founder and director of the Designing for People (DFP) Research Cluster, director of the Sensory Perception and Interaction Research Group, and associate director of the Institute for Computing, Information and Cognitive Systems. ==Recognition==