Benca attended
Harvard University, where she received her undergraduate degree, and then studied for her medical degree and doctorate in pathology at the
University of Chicago. She graduated in 1981 and began working as a professor in the 1990s, becoming the chair of the department of psychiatry and human behavior at the
UC Irvine School of Medicine in 2016. She transferred to the
Wake Forest School of Medicine in 2021, working as the chair of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine. == References ==