After receiving a Ph.D. at the University of California, San Diego, Lei Meng joined the Wang Yanan Institute for Studies in Economics (WISE) as an assistant professor in fall 2009. Her research interests include labor economics, development economics, and the economy of China. She has been working on topics related to rural-to-urban migration in China using the data she collected from a Chinese county from 2006 to 2010. Recently, she is conducting ongoing surveys in this county and studying the urbanization policy impacts at China's township and county level. She grew up in China, but emigrated with her family to South Africa when she was a teenager, and did both her undergraduate and graduate studies in the United States.

She joined IZA as a Research Fellow in February 2010.