Dr. Naughton is a Colorado Springs native who attended Fort Lewis College in Durango, CO for her undergraduate degree. She completed her Ph.D. at Virginia Tech, where she became passionate about teaching as a Graduate Teaching Assistant. Her degree is officially in Inorganic Chemistry, although she worked on a collaborative project with both an inorganic chemist and a polymer chemist. Her research focused on the incorporation of Ru, Rh, Ru photocatalytic complexes within an ionomer membrane, with an ultimate goal of understanding the effect the ionomer membrane has on the photocatalytic hydrogen production of the mixed metal complexes.