Liu has published essays and entries associated with international exhibitions in New York and Florence on recently excavated art from China and is the author of Ritual Concepts and Political Factors in the Making of Tang Princess Tombs (642–706 CE). She has worked as a researcher at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Institution. Liu has also been a visiting scholar at the Institute of Archaeology in Beijing as well as the Academia Sinica in Taipei. In addition to a Ph.D. in Chinese Art and Archaeology from the University of London, Liu holds an M.Phil. in East Asian Archaeology from the University of Cambridge and a B.A. from UC Berkeley.