Christine Blasey Ford was born Christine Margaret Blasey in November 1966 and grew up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., specifically in Bethesda, Maryland. Her parents, Paula K. Blasey and Ralph G. Blasey Jr., were registered Republicans, and she has two brothers, Tom and Ralph III. She attended the Holton-Arms School, an all-girls preparatory school in Bethesda, from 1978 to 1984, where she participated in diving and once accompanied Olympian Greg Louganis to the White House. Ford earned a BA in Experimental Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1988, an MS from Stanford University, a Master's in Clinical Psychology from Pepperdine University in 1991, and a PhD in Educational Psychology from the University of Southern California in 1995 (thesis: 'Measuring young children's coping responses to interpersonal conflict,' advised by Michael D. Newcomb). She is a professor of psychology at Palo Alto University and a research psychologist at Stanford University School of Medicine, with extensive publications specializing in statistical models, psychometrics, and the interaction between pharmaceutical companies and the FDA. Ford married Russell Ford, a mechanical engineer, in 2002 in Half Moon Bay, California; they have two sons and reside in Palo Alto, California. She is also aunt to actress Bridgit Mendler. In 2018, she testified during the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh, alleging that he sexually assaulted her in the 1980s. Following her testimony, Ford faced severe harassment, including death threats, doxxing, and hacking of her email, forcing her family to relocate multiple times (at least four), hire private security, and temporarily halt teaching. She later authored the memoir 'One Way Back' detailing her experiences.