Animals and nature have always captivated Amy. She grew up in Palatine Bridge, a small town in upstate New York, and spent her summers swimming and hiking in the Adirondack Mountains. Amy enjoyed finding wildflowers, the smell of the damp forest, and the quiet. She and her three sisters were surrounded by family pets—dogs, parakeets, rabbits, fish—plus the animals that her father cared for in his veterinary practice. Sometimes Amy helped her father with his patients.

Amy excelled in math and biology in high school. She enrolled in Pennsylvania's Swarthmore College for a degree in biology.

After finishing her degree, Amy and her colleague, best friend, and husband, Bill Weber, traveled to Africa with the U.S. Peace Corps, teaching science and English to high school students. In a thick forest of bamboo, Amy met her first wild gorillas up close and they stared at her! She dreamed of returning to Africa to discover all she could about these amazing creatures.

In 1978, as part of their graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin, Amy and Bill returned to Africa.

A population of gorillas—some of the closest relatives to humans—living in Rwanda's misty mountain region was in grave danger of becoming extinct, and Amy and Bill were determined to help them survive.