[3] Inez Fung was born and grew up in Hong Kong, which was then a British colony.

[6] Fung transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, receiving her Bachelor of Science in applied mathematics in 1971.

She joined the National Academy of Sciences in 1977, working as a research associate until 1979 before she joined the Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, a position Fung held until 1986 when she was promoted to the position of Adjunct Associate Research Scientist at the Observatory.

[11] During the last decade, she contributed to both the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third and Fourth Assessment reports.

[12] Fung lives in Berkeley, California and is married to Oceanographer Jim Bishop, a professor at the University of California-Berkeley.