Qiu was born in Nanjing in 1936. In 1937, her parents fled the Japanese attack on the city, and resettled in Chongqing. Desiring to be an artist, the young Qiu studied painting, and then taught it for a while. In 1963, she was assigned to work in a factory in Beijing in a job unrelated to her youthful aspirations—the production of measuring equipment for the Chinese National Institute of Metrology (NIM). During the Cultural Revolution, many researchers at the NIM had been fired, and in 1976 Qiu was asked to become part of their staff. Although not formally awarded the title of researcher until the 1990s, Qiu worked in a small group established on her arrival and tasked to survey historical Chinese metrology. Although she officially retired in 1999, Qiu became attached to her historical investigations, and continued to work at the Institute thereafter. According to Robert P. Crease, as the focus of the Institute shifted, no new personnel were hired to continue historical research, making Qiu the last surviving member of this group at NIM.