[5] In 1978, she received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of Michigan where her dissertation committee included Michel Oksenberg, Norma Diamond, Albert Feuerwerker, and Allen Whiting.
[8] When China and the US resumed academic exchange in 1979, she spent a year at Nanjing University as a visiting scholar, researching Chinese secret societies under Cai Shaoqing and the Taiping Rebellion under Mao Jiaqi [zh].
[4] She had been sympathetic with the Cultural Revolution as a student, and joined the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars, a group that opposed American involvement in the Vietnam War.
Her article "From Mencius to Mao – and Now: Chinese Conceptions of Socioeconomic Rights" (2008) won the Heinz Eulau Prize from the American Political Science Association.
Perry received honorary doctorate degrees from Hobart and William Smith Colleges and from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.