Tonya was born in Rochester, New York. Her father, Jack, is an entrepreneur, and her mother, Jean, is a homemaker. She has two older brothers and one younger sister. She also has one daughter whom she raised as a single parent.
She has been acting since the age of 4 when she first got the acting bug by portraying Lucy in "A Charlie Brown Christmas" at her preschool. After graduating from high-school, she attended Tisch School of the Arts briefly but returned home to Upstate New York at the beginning of her second semester, to work in the corporate world.
She returned to school as a "non-traditional" student to complete her degree in Theatre Arts at Nazareth College of Rochester and went on to achieve her Masters degree in Human Resource Management from the same institution. Tonya also holds a PhD in Organization & Management with a specialization in Management Education and has made a living both as a Human Resource Professional and an Educational Consultant and College Professor.
In her spare time, Tonya enjoys writing, reading (paranormal romance is her favorite genre), as well as playing hidden object games.
