Kayly completed a Bachelor of Arts in Biochemistry from Scripps College in 2010. She then started her graduate training with Dr. David B. Morton at Oregon Health & Science University, where she studied the interaction of TDP-43, an ALS-associated protein, with type-II voltage-gated calcium channels in Drosophila melanogaster. She completed her Ph.D. in 2017 and, in 2018, became a Postdoctoral Research Scholar with Dr. Andy Frank in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology.