Pam was born in Maryland and raised in southern New Jersey, outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She attended George Washington University in Washington D.C., where she earned a bachelor's degree magna cum laude in international affairs, with minors in history and Japanese. She then received her master's in history from Cambridge University in England.

After Cambridge, Pam accepted an appointment as special assistant to the secretary of the army. The position provided a unique opportunity to witness and participate in operations at the most senior levels of government, including helping the families of the Pan Am Flight 103 victims secure their memorial at Arlington National Cemetery, observing recovery efforts at the site of the Oklahoma City bombings and attending ceremonies to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of World War II at sites such as Bastogne, Belgium and Corregidor in the Philippines.

Following her work at the Pentagon, Pam then became a foreign service officer with the State Department and was assigned to the U.S. consulate in Kraków, Poland, for more than two years. It was during this period that Pam developed her expertise in Polish-Jewish relations and the Holocaust by working on matters such as preservation of Auschwitz and the restitution of Jewish property in Poland and developing close relations with the surviving Jewish community. Pam remains involved in Polish-Jewish issues by publishing articles and serving as an advisor to various organizations

Having left the foreign service in 1998 to attend law school at the University of Pennsylvania, Pam now lives in Philadelphia where she works as an attorney. She has done extensive pro bono and civic work focusing on at-risk youth, hunger relief and homelessness. When not writing novels or practicing law, Pam enjoys spending time with her family and friends, going to the beach, cheering on her Philadelphia Eagles, reading, traveling and participating in running and other sports (she is a second-degree black belt in karate)

The Kommandant's Girl was her first novel.