Law is originally from
Marion, Iowa, where her father was a school band director and her mother was a schoolteacher and librarian. In high school, she took courses in astronomy and calculus at a local college. She majored in physics at
Iowa State University, choosing physics as a reaction to her frustration with the imprecision of astronomical measurements. There, she worked with
Paul C. Canfield on crystal growth, and on graduating in 2006, she followed Canfield's suggestion to continue in
condensed matter physics. After completing a Ph.D. in physics at the
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2012, she continued there as a postdoctoral researcher in
electrical and computer engineering, working there with Daniel Wasserman on optical materials. In 2014 she became Clare Boothe Luce Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the
University of Delaware, and in 2023 she moved to Pennsylvania State University. ==Recognition==