McCarthy-Miller was born on September 3, 1963 in Elizabeth, New Jersey. She attended the University of Maryland, where she was a DJ and majored in radio, television and film. While in college she interned at CNN and MTV.

McCarthy-Miller worked as a line producer’s assistant and assistant director at MTV and began directing in 1988. During her nine years with MTV, she worked on MTV Unplugged with Nirvana, Neil Young, Elton John, Tony Bennett, and k.d. lang. She worked for The Week in Rock and later The Jon Stewart Show.

She was the director of NBC’s Saturday Night Live for eleven years. She left SNL in 2006 at the end of season 31, replaced as director by Don Roy King. She became a director for Viacom’s MTV again in 2003 when she directed the MTV Video Music Awards.