At time of SpaceX Crew-10 her family name was "Ayers"; Major, U.S. Air Force, is a native of Colorado who graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 2011 with a bachelor's degree in mathematics with a minor in Russian. She later earned a master's degree in computational and applied mathematics from Rice University. Stilwell is an experienced combat aviator with more than 200 combat hours and more than 1,150 hours of total flight time in the T-38 and the F-22 Raptor fighter jet. One of the few women currently flying the F-22, in 2019 Ayers led the first ever all-woman formation of the aircraft in combat.