Alison L. McKee earned a BA and M.A in English from the University of California, Santa Barbara where she studied film and literature in the English and Film Studies departments. She went on to get a PhD in film and media studies at UCLA, focusing on film history, narrative, and gender issues in classical American cinema. She has presented and published numerous papers at national and international film and television conferences and been invited to speak in the U.S. and abroad on a range of topics related to film, gender, history, and narrative.