Finn was born on November 2, 1949, in
Niš,
Yugoslavia (now
Serbia). She grew up and went to high school in
Niš, which is south of
Belgrade in what is now
Serbia. She moved to the
United States when she was 18 years old, having married an American. They settled in
San Juan, Puerto Rico, where her husband was stationed for three years as a
Coast Guard officer. In
Puerto Rico, she earned her
Bachelor of Science in
Biology from the
Inter American University of Puerto Rico at San Juan. At the
IAUPR, she was one of Dr. Alexander Acholonu's students. She published her first paper as an undergraduate, about completing a life cycle of a parasite. When her husband was discharged into the reserves they moved to
Stanford, California. Finn graduated with a
Doctor of Philosophy in
Immunology from
Stanford University in 1980 and completed her postdoctoral fellowship at the university in 1982. ==References==