Monica developed strong ties to Palo Alto beginning in the early 1990s as a reporter for the Peninsula Times Tribune, later serving as Arts & Entertainment Editor at the Palo Alto Weekly. She attended UC Berkeley School of Law and practiced media and intellectual property law in San Francisco before transitioning to legal marketing roles at international Silicon Valley law firms for two decades. Since 2022, she has worked with Stanford Law School's Communications and Media Relations team.

Her international interests stem from having a German mother and participation in an AFS exchange program in Brazil during her teenage years. She received a French-American Foundation journalism fellowship and worked as a visiting reporter in Bordeaux. During law school, she studied EU and U.S. law at Central European University in Budapest.

For Neighbors Abroad, she has led student trips to Enschede, organized a photography collaboration between Enschede and Palo Alto photo clubs, and coordinated an Albi delegation visit to Palo Alto in 2023. She is fluent in French and lives with her husband Matt, their adult daughters, and rescue dogs.