Cheng grew up in China and graduated from Wuyuzhang Honors College of Sichuan University with a Bachelor's Degree in Environmental Science and Engineering in 2011. During her time in the MS program on Rangeland Management at Peking University from 2011 to 2014, she did massive interviews with herders from Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Sichuan Province and developed her research skills. At the same time, she followed her passion in visual story-telling and played essential part in two films produced by the student film production association in Peking University - a feature-length film A Hundred Years Waiting which is based on the combination of the historical events of Peking University and the contemporary campus romance, and a documentary film The Coal Miner's Little Dreams on the work and life of a coal miner in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province.