Helen graduated with an MEng in Civil Engineering from Imperial College London in 2000 and after working for a year as a graduate engineer, she moved to Italy to complete her MSc and PhD degrees in earthquake engineering at the University of Pavia (ROSE School).

Helen worked as a researcher in seismic risk at the EUCENTRE from 2006 to 2009, after which she moved to the GEM Foundation (hosted at EUCENTRE) to coordinate seismic risk activities at a global scale.