Cindy has a PhD in Civil Engineering, and her research focused on how civil engineers interact with computer technology. Before and during graduate school she worked as a software engineer. Her second daughter was born six weeks after she submitted her thesis, when her oldest daughter was three years old. Her youngest daughter was born a few years later.

After four months of being at home with her older two daughters, Cindy became an accredited breastfeeding peer counselor. She went on to earn a credential in Adult Education, with a specialty in Parent Education, and she sat for the exam to become an International Board-Certified Lactation Consultant. At various times she has been responsible for training new breastfeeding counselors both locally and across northern California.

Currently Cindy teaches breastfeeding classes to expectant couples and parenting classes to parents of newborns and parents of three-year-olds for her local school district. She provides phone and email counseling for breastfeeding mothers and leads breastfeeding support groups, primarily for employed mothers. Her own engineering experience has been very helpful as she works to translate the fuzzy world of parenting into terms that Silicon Valley techno-geeks can understand.

In Cindy's words,

Teaching is most satisfying when I am able to express ideas in a way that gives parents new insight and understanding. I enjoy taking the muddle of reality that is infancy and childhood and pulling some sort of structure out so that new parents have guideposts to follow. But ultimately, I can only provide guideposts. I believe that each family relationship is unique and that only parents can make the individual decisions that will work for their family situation.