MING Guoli graduated in 1994 from the School of Public Health of Tongji Medical School of HUST(former Tongji Medical University), majoring in maternal and child health. She obtained her Ph. D. in Biology from the University of California San Diego in 2002. After years of work at Johns Hopkins University, she transferred to the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania as a tenured professor.

On October 21, 2019, the national academy of medical sciences (NAM) announced its newly elected 90 members and 10 foreign members at its 2019 annual meeting. Tongji alumnus Ming Guoli is one of the two Chinese scientists elected.

She was appointed Associate Editor of Molecular Brain and Neurogenesis. She has been awarded the A.E.Bennett Award of the Society of Biological Psychiatry, the Townsend Rototop Cited Researcher Award and other awards. Moreover, she has published more than 120 research papers in international authoritative academic journals such as Nature, Cell and PNAS.