Shelby grew up in High Point, NC and completed her undergraduate education at UNC-Chapel Hill in 2011 with a B.S. in chemistry. She then went to medical school at Wake Forest School of Medicine and graduated in 2015. She did her residency in general surgery at the Medical University of South Carolina, which she completed in 2020, followed by a fellowship in hepatopancreatobiliary surgery at Indiana University in 2021.