She received a B.E. with honors from the Department of Computer Science & Technology, Tsinghua University in 2000, an MA and a Ph.D. from the Department of Computer Science, Princeton University in 2002 and 2006. Her Ph.D. thesis advisor was Professor Kai Li. Lv was a summer intern at Google Inc. (2002) and Microsoft Research Silicon Valley Lab (2003). Before joining University of Colorado, she also spent one year in Princeton University as a postdoc, and one year in the Computer Science Department, Stony Brook University as an assistant professor.