Bernice Eddy was born in Glendale, West Virginia, but grew up in Marietta, Ohio after her father’s death. She took pre-medical courses at Marietta College, intending to be a physician like her father and two brothers.

During her senior year of college, she was awarded a fellowship in bacteriology at the University of Cincinnati, thus starting on her path to research. She also received where she also obtained her masters and Ph.D. while there. She later researched leprosy at a Public Health Service hospital in Louisiana, where she met her future husband Dr. Jerald G. Wooley, who would lead them to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Dr. Eddy Joined the NIH Laboratory of Biologics Control (which became the Division of Biologics Standards [DBS] in 1955) in 1937.