Yunqing completed her undergraduate studies at Nankai University, China. She received her PhD at the Pennsylvania State University in the USA, where she characterized the functions of heterotrimeric G proteins in salinity and guard cell responses. During her postdoctoral training at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, her research focused on the comparative development of grain shattering in the grass family. She was awarded a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship in the UK in 2024, which enabled her to start her own research group at the James Hutton Institute. Her current research continues to investigate grain disarticulation in the Triticeae. She is also aiming to establish transformation systems in barley wild relatives.