Pengyao is an incoming Assistant Professor at the Biodesgin Center for Mechnisms of Evolution at Arizona State University. She is going to start her position in January 2024.

Before starting her own lab, Pengyao worked as a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Genome Sciences at the University of Washington, working with Dr. Kelley Harris and Dr. Maitreya Dunham.

She did her Ph. D. at the Department of Ecology and Evolution of the University of Chicago (2010-2017), working with Dr. John Reinitz and Dr. Martin Kreitman.