Born in Nantong, Jiangsu Province in 1958, Cao Hong was admitted to the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at Nanjing University in 1977 and received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1982, Master of Arts degree in 1984, and Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1989. She is currently a professor and doctoral supervisor in the School of Liberal Arts at Nanjing University. She has served as a foreign researcher at the Faculty of Letters, Kyoto University in Japan (1991-1992) and a visiting lecturer in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at Korea University in South Korea (1997-1998). She is a member of the Fourth National Committee for Collation and Research of Ancient Books in Higher Education Institutions, the president of the Chinese Parallel Prose Society, and a standing director of the Chinese Prose Society. She is also a joint editor-in-chief of the Collection of Studies on Qing Dynasty Literature (Volumes 1-6). Her main research areas are the history of Chinese ancient prose, Buddhism, and Han literature outside China.