PALO ALTO, Calif. — Her studies first brought her West, but for Christine Margaret Blasey Ford, the move to California proved a way to leave behind what had gone wrong in her teenage years in the patrician suburbs of Washington, D.C.

Born into a well-off family in Montgomery County, Maryland, Ford has said she spent years working to recover from an assault as a young girl in that world of prep school parties — by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, she would disclose years later.

Long before she decided to come forward, Ford, now 51, had built a new life for herself in Malibu, Honolulu and the San Francisco Bay area, embracing academia, surfing, cheering on the Stanford football team and taking in outdoor rock concerts.

Ford settled in the Silicon Valley in the 1990s, when the first wave of the tech boom was transforming lives around her and startups were replacing peach orchards. She began working as a research psychologist and biostatistician at Stanford University, one of the most elite universities in the country. She later was hired as a professor in a consortium between Stanford and Palo Alto University. Soon, she married her husband in a nearby coastal town, and they bought a classic Eichler home in Palo Alto and had two sons.

“She is very friendly, outgoing and brilliant, and she is a great mother,” said clinical psychologist Erin Heinemeyer, a mentee of Ford’s who is also a friend. “I know in general she supports women’s rights, and she often stands up for students, and she had expressed concerns to me about other students who might be struggling.”

Months after anonymously contacting her elected officials, Ford went public on Sunday telling The Washington Post that Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed at a Maryland house party in the early 1980s and tried to take her clothes off. He put his hand over her mouth when she tried to scream, she said, and she feared he might inadvertently kill her. She said she was around 15 at the time and he would have been about 17.

Friends who knew her say she struggled with the decision to come forward.

“She clearly has nothing to gain and much to lose by going public with her story,” said Jim Gensheimer, a friend of Ford’s. “I know from things she has told me, including her need to have more than one exit door in her bedroom to prevent her from being trapped, that this event was serious enough to have a lasting impact on her life.”

Through the White House, Kavanaugh issued a statement saying he “categorically and unequivocally” denied the allegation.

“I can only say this: He is such an outstanding man. Very hard for me to imagine that anything happened,” President Donald Trump said Wednesday. “I think it’s a very unfair thing what’s going on.”

The allegation has shaken up the battle over Kavanaugh’s confirmation, and Republicans are calling for a public hearing with both accuser and accused testifying. But lawyers for Ford say that she wants an FBI investigation of her allegation in advance of a Judiciary Committee hearing set for Monday.

The lawyers said in a letter that Ford wants to cooperate with the panel. But they say that in the days since she gone public with her allegation, she has been the target of “vicious harassment and even death threats.” Her family has relocated, they said.

An FBI investigation “should be the first step in addressing the allegations,” the lawyers wrote Tuesday in a letter obtained by The Associated Press.

Kavanaugh supporters have called Ford’s credibility and motivations into question. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, told NBC News that Ford is “mixed up,” and called Kavanaugh “honest” and “straightforward.”