Feng Yunhe hailed from Lijin, Shandong Province in China. She attended primary and secondary school at the Jinan Girls Junior Normal School and the Beijing Girls Higher Normal School. In 1920 she was admitted to the United States to study chemical engineering at Ohio State University, where she received her master's degree in 1928 and her doctorate in chemical engineering in 1931, making her the first woman to obtain a doctoral degree in chemical engineering in the United States. Whilst in America, she was known as Yun Hao Feng or Ruth Feng. In 1930 she and Mary Bucher were members of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Student Chapter in Ohio, the first cohort group to allow female membership.