Kara Barton is a native of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She attended the University of Pittsburgh and participated in the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps Program through the nearby Carnegie Mellon University. In 2016, she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish, a minor in History, and a related area certificate in Portuguese. Upon graduation, Kara commissioned into the United States Navy. Her Navy career has taken her to Pensacola, FL; Virginia Beach, VA; Manama, Bahrain; Guam; and San Diego, CA. Kara recently got out of the Navy in October 2023 and is spending the first half of 2024 traveling throughout South America, reacquiring her Spanish fluency and taking graduate school classes online through American University.