Dana hails from San Diego, California, by way of Kittery, Maine and Chicago, Illinois. At age 12, her mother dragged her - kicking and screaming - from the world of competitive soccer to her first dance studio. The tantrum didn't last long.
Dana's professional life began at age 16 when she made her stage debut, singing & hoofing away in "42nd Street" (with Kirby Ward & the late Kathy Wydner), which led to a string of musicals including "Singin' in the Rain" (with Joel Blum & Cynthia Ferrer), "No, No Nanette", "Bye, Bye, Birdie", "Sugar Babies" (with Rip Taylor), & Yeston & Kopit's "Phantom".

Through her LongStoryShort Productions banner, she has produced & starred in short films, including festival crowd-pleaser, Riley's Fan, and Ultraviolet, a short action film by award-winning director/writer, Paul Budnitz, which played at the prestigious Berlin Film Festival.
She has been working on a novel based on her own travel journal detailing a summer of (non)romantic triangles & other treachery in a small English town, and fully intends to develop a feature length film based on said book.
Dana attended the La Jolla Playhouse Summer Conservatory (apprentice to Bill Irwin), the British American Drama Academy at Oxford University, and graduated from UCLA with a BA in Mass Communication Studies.