He earned his M.A. degree in Turkology from the Central University for Ethnic Minorities (Minzu University of China) in Beijing; he received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1993.
China | Harvard University | Columbia University | Yale University | University of Paris | New York University | Stanford University | Princeton University | University of Cambridge | University of Pennsylvania | People's Republic of China | University of Michigan | University of Chicago | University of California, Berkeley | University of Toronto | Cornell University | University of Oxford | University of London | University of Oslo | Cambridge University | University of Southern California | McGill University | Johns Hopkins University | Northwestern University | University of California | Brown University | University of Queensland | University of Minnesota | University of Washington | University of Notre Dame |
Since then, additional relationships have been forged with China's Minzu University and Yanbian University of Science and Technology, America's Illinois State University and Biola University, the Philippine University of the Philippines, Yugoslavia's Megatrend University, Russia's Amur State University, Switzerland's Winterthur University, and Australia's University of Newcastle.
During 1989–1990 she spent a year at the Minzu University of China in Beijing, where she worked with Chinese Tangutologists, including as Shi Jinbo, Bai Bin and Li Fanwen.