She received her PhD in Textile Sciences from University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her research interests lie in developing industrial and biomedical products from agricultural byproducts and wastes. She has published papers on developing different lightweight materials, such as green composites, three-dimensional ultrafine fibrous scaffolds, hollow nanoparticles from chicken feathers, corn distillers grain, soy meal and other animal and plant originated residues for biomedical, textile and other industrial applications. She has also co-edited a symposium series book with Dr. Yiqi Yang published by American Chemical Society in 2015.