Lucy obtained a M.Sci. in Neuroscience from the University of Nottingham, in 2011. Her studies included an academic placement year at The Mental Health Research Institute at the University of Melbourne, Australia, where she studies alterations in glutamatergic and tumour necrosis factor-α-related pathways in schizophrenia and mood disorders.

She then moved to Imperial College London to pursue doctoral studies with Dr. Gavin Bewick, where she investigated how dietary fermentable carbohydrates and the microbiome interact to protect against diet-induced obesity. Her work revealed that microbial short chain fatty acids act at FFAR2 to expand a population of cells within the colon that secrete enteroendocrine hormones that act at the hypothalamus to suppress appetite. For this work, she obtained her PhD in Medicine from Imperial College London in 2015.