Mingli Cao graduated from Wuhan University of Technology (now Wuhan University of Technology) with a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in materials science, and she a doctorate from Dalian University of Technology in materials science (in the direction of building materials). She joined the Building Materials Research Institute of Dalian University of Technology in 1996 as a teacher and she was a visiting scholar at CSIRO Manufacturing in Australia from 2017 to 2018. Her research directions include high-performance fiber-reinforced cement-based composite materials; micro-nano modification theory and technology of cement-based materials; multi-scale fiber reinforcement theory and technology for cement-based materials; and functional cement-based porous materials.