Prior to joining COS, Shehan pursued graduate work in cultural anthropology at the University of Chicago. There, she executed an ethnographic research project exploring the religious and ethnic identity of young Jewish professionals in Chicago. At the University of Chicago, she received extensive training on ethnographic methods and qualitative research while completing several independent projects utilizing traditional qualitative methods, social media, and visual ethnography. Her research focuses were the anthropology of religion and the anthropology of sport.

She completed her undergraduate degree at Tulane University where she designed and carried out an ethnographic research project examining the Spanish perception of Jewish and Muslim people, both contemporaneously and historically, in Andalusia. She also received comprehensive training in qualitative methods and social science theory.

Shehan holds a Master of Arts in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago and a Bachelor of the Arts from Tulane University in Anthropology and Philosophy with minors in Spanish and Religious Studies.