She received her B.S. and Ph.D. degrees at Peking University and Princeton University, respectively. Her research interests include using in-situ and remote sensing observations of clouds and aerosols to improve model simulations on various scales. Some of the awards that she received include the NCAR ASP Postdoc Fellowship, NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship, and the Francis Upton Fellowship at Princeton University (the highest graduate fellowship given by the School of Engineering and Applied Mathematics).