Baker grew up in Amherst, Massachusetts, and graduated from the Department of Dramatic Writing at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.

Her play Body Awareness was staged Off-Broadway by the Atlantic Theater Company in May and June 2008. The play featured JoBeth Williamsand was nominated for a Drama Desk Award and an Outer Critics Circle Award.

Circle Mirror Transformation premiered Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons in October 2009.and received Obie Awards for Best New American Play and Performance, Ensemble. The play has been nominated for the Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Play and Outstanding Director of a Play, and the cast has been awarded a special Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Ensemble Performances.

Her play, The Aliens, which premiered Off-Broadway at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in April 2010, was a finalist for the 2010 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and shared the 2010 Obie Award for Best New American Play with Circle Mirror Transformation.

She will be teaching at the University of Rochester starting in late 2010.

Baker was one of seven playwrights selected to participate in the 2008 Sundance Institute Theatre Lab.