Choi studied piano at Yewon Middle School, Korea's first middle school dedicated to the arts. In high school, Choi liked Chemistry and Physics classes tremendously and decided to become a scientist. Choi attended college at Seoul National University in South Korea, earning her B.S. (major in Food and Nutrition and minor in Chemistry) in 1993 and M.S. in 1995. She worked with Jin-Ho Choy on the crystal structure, pressure-induced phase transitions, and magnetism of chromium-niobium oxide materials that adopt the double perovskite structure.
For her doctoral study, Choi came to the United States in 1995. She worked at Michigan State University in the laboratory of Mercouri G. Kanatzidis, earning her Ph.D. in chemistry in 2000. Her graduate work focused on the synthesis of various solid state antimony and bismuth-containing chalcogenides using the "molten polychalcogenide salt method."
Choi then conducted postdoctoral studies from 2000 to 2002 at the University of California, Santa Barbara with Galen D. Stucky and Eric W. McFarland. Her postdoctoral research concerned the electrochemical synthesis of nanostructured thin films.