McInnes graduated in 1988 from
Muhlenberg College, with a double major in mathematics and physics. She completed her doctorate in applied mathematics in 1993 at the
University of Virginia; her dissertation,
Solution of Convective-Diffusive Flow Problems with Newton-Like Methods, was supervised by James McDonough Ortega. She was chair of the SIAM Activity Group on Computational Science and Engineering for 2015–2016. In 2021, she will join the
SIAM council as a Member-at-Large. In 2022, she was elected Chair of the
Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Activity Group on Supercomputing (SIAM SIAG/SC). ==Recognition==