Lyster was born in
Irvine, California. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in journalism, with a double major in gender studies, from the Medill School of Journalism at
Northwestern University. During that time she focused on miscarriages of justice (particularly on false convictions for murder) under the auspices of the Medill Innocence Project. She entered the sphere of journalism after a career in the financial services industry, having been a senior equity analyst covering the retail sector at Tiburon Research Group in San Francisco. She then worked as a video host and correspondent for
Yahoo Finance where she anchored a live daily show on the
Nasdaq. She then worked as a correspondent and morning anchor at
CBS News in New York before moving to
Los Angeles where she worked for
ABC News reporting for
Good Morning America and
ABC World News Tonight. She covered national news stories including the
2016 Orlando Pulse nightclub terror attack,
Hurricane Matthew in Florida, wildfires in Southern California, tornadoes in Texas, the
2016 Brussels terror attack, the
2015 San Bernardino terror attack, and the
2016 Democratic National Convention. ==Personal life==