Rachel Willson-Broyles became interested in Sweden and the Swedish language at an early age. She majored in Scandinavian Studies at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota, and received her BA there in 2002. She started translating while a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she received a Ph.D. in Scandinavian Studies in 2013. She lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota.