A Northwest native, Shell earned a Master's Degree from Harvard University (Cambridge, MA.) and a Bachelor's Degree from Western Washington University(Bellingham, WA.), she strives to be a lifelong learner.
Shell has lived in Kenya, Norway and Japan, having spent more than two years in Asia, one in Africa and one plus cumulatively in Europe. These adventures helped her master conversational Japanese and smatterings of Swahili and Arabic.