Zhoulai graduated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. During her time at Harvard, she was actively involved in the Harvard China Education Symposium, where she developed keen insights into what it takes for a Chinese student to get accepted and succeed at an American university and beyond. After Harvard, she worked as an Assistant Principal for a new private high school, creating the curriculum from scratch and successfully obtaining the state’s Approval for Attendance. Zhoulai co-authored a book titled “Experiencing Asia”, after visiting the education ministries in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Seoul and other leading cities in Asia. The book was published in Cambridge and later translated into Chinese and Korean.