[1] She grew up in Washington, D.C.[1] Mao attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she specialized in materials science and engineering.

[4] Her research considers the study of extreme environments in an effort to design more efficient materials for energy generation and storage.

[5] In 2015, Mao found evidence that life existed on earth 4.1 billion years ago, which indicates that it survived the well-documented bombardment of the inner solar system that formed the craters in the moon.

[6] She made use of X-ray imaging to study zircons, durable minerals that form from molten rocks and preserve information about their immediate environments for hundreds of thousands of years.

[7] Mao has combined her training in materials science with her interest in geology to design light, strong metal alloys.