Kirsty was born in Edinburgh, Scotland and grew up spending weekends at the beach and summers on the Mediterranean coastline leading to her initial fascination in the marine environment. Gaining experience from the Scottish Association of Marine Science and the Institute of Aquaculture led her to pursue this interest and study it further.

Kirsty completed her Bachelor’s Degree in Marine Biology at Newcastle University in 2017. During her undergraduate study she volunteered at the Blue Reef Aquarium, communicating science through talks on the rocky intertidal environment to the public and local schools. In her final year she was fortunate enough to attend the Bermuda Institution of Ocean Science (BIOS) giving her the chance to study coral reef communities on inshore and offshore reefs, a stark contrast to her native British waters. For her honours project Kirsty studied the diversity of benthic invertebrates using baited lander systems supervised by Dr Alan Jamieson.

Kirsty attended the Red Sea Summer course in 2017. Impressed by the facilities and opportunities available at KAUST she is now a master’s student in marine science. As part of the Reef Ecology Lab she plans to the study the spatial distribution of nesting and foraging sites of marine turtles in the central Red Sea.​