Dr. Natalie Bruzzese Whitco was raised on Great South Bay, Long Island, New York, and was an avid swimmer, tennis and softball player through high school where she graduated with honors before attending college in New York. 

As an academic merit scholar, she studied at Regent's University, London, UK, and was an applied parliamentary intern in 1994 before graduating with a B.A. in Philosophy, Politics and Law from SUNY Binghamton, in 1996. Dr. Whitco was an applied summer intern for Justice Joan Marie Durante in the Supreme Court of New York, Queens County, before beginning graduate law studies at St. John's University in New York. 

In law school, Dr. Whitco became Co-Editor of the NYS Real Property Journal, VP for the school's ABA student division, a member of Phi Delta Phi international legal honor society, applied legal intern in the litigation division for the Office of NYS Attorney General in downtown Manhattan and in the superfund division at the USEPA, also in downtown Manhattan. She completed her law studies at St. John's and earned her JD in 1999. Having practiced tort, contract, commercial and real property law in New York, where she was admitted to the U.S. District Courts in Eastern and Southern New York, and in Florida (Berns & Castro; Silverman, Perlstein & Acamporo, LLP; Grossman & Associates, PLLC; Bruno, Gerbino & Soriano, LLP; Katzman & Korr, LLP) she waived into the DC Bar before beginning another career in education.