Judith completed most of her undergraduate studies in Tokyo, Japan. She went on to become an interpreter for the United States Information Agency (U.S.I.A.) in Osaka before visiting South Vietnam as a friend of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), in Danang, VN, at the height of the Vietnam War. After receiving a Master’s and Doctorate in Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley, she designed and ran a PTSD Assessment and Support Group program in the Refugee Clinic at San Francisco General Hospital, an endeavor that deeply inspired her to write about war trauma.