Margaux grew up in a small town outside of Seattle, Washington. She graduated from the University of Washington with a B.S. in Biochemistry and Chemistry. Then Margaux moved to the Bay Area to do her Ph.D. with Daniel Herschlag at Stanford University, where she studied the molecular mechanisms of enzyme function and evolution. She then joined the labs of Polly Fordyce and Gavin Sherlock as a postdoc to learn and adapt high-throughput in vitro and in vivo methods. Margaux started her lab at UCSF, and moved her group to UC Berkeley where she is currently an Assistant Professor.

In her spare time, Margaux reads a lot of science fiction, cooks complicated recipes, consumes too much television, runs outdoors and cycles indoors.