She was born on 4 January, 1963, in Fosnavåg (Norway).

She moved to Oslo to enter university without a clear vocation. There she met her old school mate, Edvard Moser, and with him she studied Psychology; they married on 27 July, 1985.

In 1991 they received a grant to obtain a PH.D. in Neurophisiology and they studied both the dorsal and ventral hippocampus with Richard Morris at the University of Edinburgh.

In 1996 they worked with John O'Keefe, who, in 1971, had discovered the so called place cells in the hippocampus, at London University College.

Since 1996 they have worked at the Norwegian Science and Technology University in Trondheim. There, they discovered the grid cells in a section close to the hippocampus. These cells provide spatial metrics, and together with O’Keefe’s place cells form the brain’s positioning system, an internal GPS that allows precise orientation in space.

She has received several scientific recognitions. In 2003 she was elected as member of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters; in 2011, member of the European Academy and two years later, the Louisa Gross Horowitz Prize of Columbia University.

In 2014 she received the Nobel Prize in Medicine together with J. O´Keefe, and her husband E. Moser. Thanks to their research, Trondheim has become a reference centre in Neuroscience.