Ge was born in China. She attended Peking University for her undergraduate studies, where she studied chemistry. After graduating in 1997 Ge moved to the United States, where she joined Cornell University as a doctoral student. Here she started to work on mass spectrometry, using electron-capture dissociation to study proteins. She worked under the supervision of Tadhg Begley and Fred McLafferty. After completing her doctorate, Ge worked as a research scientist at Wyeth.