Dr. Mao earned her B.S. degree in Biological Science and Biotechnology from Tsinghua University in 1997, and Ph.D. degree in Neuroscience from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 2005. She carried out her postdoctoral training with Karel Svoboda, first at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and then at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Janelia Research Campus. She was appointed as an Assistant Professor at the Vollum Institute in 2010, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2017.