Loren was born Maria Loren Avellaneda Sharp on May 7, 1980 in Sacramento, California. She has one sibling, an older brother, Daniel Sharp, who is the executive chef at a small restaurant in New York City. Her mother is of Mexican descent, received her college degree in her 40s, and became a teacher; her father, an American, was working as an economist at the time he married her mother. She spent her childhood in Sacramento, California, and later, in suburban Sacramento, although spending summers in an area of her mother’s heritage, in Mexico. Loren has stated that, despite her mom being from Michoacán, Mexico, she did not learn Spanish until she was 10 years old, and that doing so helped her to communicate with relatives when she would return to the village from which her mother came. From early childhood, Loren had surrounded herself with an array of pets, and had intended a career in biology. Loren went to an all-girls’ high school, where she was a member of a men’s rowing team.

Loren attended the Whitman College, in Walla Walla, Washington, where she majored in biology. She “begrudgingly fell in love” with acting after enrolling in a fine arts course “to get it out of the way”, only to find herself moved to an entry level acting class when the arts class was full. It is reported that she did work on a commercial fishing boat in Alaska as a means to pay her college expenses. She graduated with a B.A. in theatre, in 2002. She also studied performing arts at the Ruskin School of Acting. From her upbringing and studies, Loren is fluent in English, Spanish, and Italian.

In 2009, Loren played the lead role, Flora, at the American Conservatory Theater in José Rivera’s Boleros for the Disenchanted. She also starred as Antonia in a stage production of My Antonia at Pacific Resident Theatre.

In 2019, Loren joined the second season of the Netflix science fiction series, Altered Carbon, as a series regular, playing the character of Danica Harlan.