Kirsten was raised in Lincoln an only child, by her father who was a lawyer and her mother who was teaching math at a local high school. After graduating from high school in Lincoln, Nebraska in 2004, she enrolled at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln from which she graduated Suma Cum Laude in 2009 with a Bachelor's degree in international studies and minored in anthropology. She spent her final year studying abroad first in Peru and then in Thailand. She worked as an Ethnobotanical Researcher in Peru and Thailand where she did research on traditional and alternative medicine. She stayed there for a year before becoming an office and financial manager at Weiss Law Offices, through to October 2012.