Gisel Valladares earned a Master's degree in History from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio for a thesis titled, "Maybe She's Born with it, Maybe it's Mexicanidad: Depictions of Mexican Feminine Beauty and the Body in Visual Media During the 1950s." After graduating, she moved to Monterey, California where she obtained a position at the Naval Post Graduate School in the International Graduate Programs Department. Currently, the author and her family are stationed at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where she continues to contribute to Origins.