Moghbeli was born on June 24, 1983, in Bad Nauheim, West Germany, to an Iranian family. Her parents, Fereshteh and Kamy Moghbeli are originally from the city of Mahabad in northwestern Iran and had fled Iran following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and subsequently emigrated to the United States, where they settled in Baldwin, New York. Moghbeli attended Baldwin Senior High School in New York and Advanced Space Academy at the Huntsville Space Camp in Alabama while she was a student.