Sanford was born in Santa Rosa, California and raised near Stockton, California. She holds a B.S. in conservation biology and Ph.D. in Molecular, Cellular, and Integrative Physiology from U.C. Davis. She is a specialist in learning and memory. While attending graduate school at U.C. Davis, she found academic bureaucracy unappealing and decided to shift her career path from research to science communication. Sanford holds a black belt in taekwondo. She says martial arts was "something concrete to escape to" when faced with research hardships during graduate school. Sanford lived in San Francisco with her husband until moving to Portland, Oregon in April 2015. She has one child.
In February 2015, Sanford launched a new company to help researchers and other scientists have better communication. The company, named Broader Impacts, does video production and social media outreach.