Haegel is originally from
New Haven, Connecticut, but grew up in Ohio, where her father and mother worked as an accountant and Latin teacher, respectively. She studied materials science and engineering at the
University of Notre Dame, graduating as co-valedictorian. She continued the study of materials science and engineering as a graduate student at the
University of California, Berkeley, supported by an
NSF Graduate Fellowship, performing her research under the direction of Prof. Eugene Haller at the nearby
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Earning a master's degree along the way, she completed her Ph.D. at Berkeley in 1985, and became a postdoctoral researcher at the Siemens Research Laboratory in Germany. Returning to the US, Haegel took a faculty position at the
University of California, Los Angeles, as an assistant professor of materials science. She moved to
Fairfield University, in part to be closer to her ailing mother, and ten years later moved back to California, taking a position as
distinguished professor of physics at the
Naval Postgraduate School. She moved again to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in 2014. ==Recognition==