Wu was a student at Liaoning Technical University, where she received a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering in 1989, and then became a China Coal Research Academic in the Chinese Academy of Mine Science and Technology from 1989 to 1993.
[1][2] Next, she moved to the US, started her graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin, and earned a master's degree in economics there.
[3] Wu joined the University of Texas at Dallas as an assistant professor of computer science in 2002.
[1] Wu was named to the 2025 class of IEEE Fellows "for contributions to study of data communication and processing in wireless sensor networks".
[4] Wu is married to Ding-Zhu Du, also a professor of computer science at the University of Texas at Dallas.