Ms. Wheeler is a graduate of the mechanical engineering department at Washington University in St. Louis, and is a licensed Professional Engineer. Following a five-year stint as a journalist, she began her engineering career in 1984, working in aircraft HVAC at what was then McDonnell Douglas Corp. After some years she moved into crew station design at McDonnell Douglas. In 1991 she began a period of self-employment that included many writing assignments of a technical nature, as well as teaching science and computer science to groups of homeschoolers. She started a publishing company, MotherboardBooks.com, to produce computer science books for homeschoolers.

Ms. Wheeler began working in the pharmaceutical industry in early 2006 as a validation engineer. She tests manufacturing equipment for pharmaceuticals, including writing test procedures and summaries.