Sheng double majored in Mathematics and Economics in Beijing University. He obtained a Ph.D. in Biostatistics and fulfilled a Ph.D. Minor of Molecular Biology at Harvard University. He worked at Stanford University and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign before moving to UCSD. He received NSF CAREER Award, Alfred Sloan Fellowship, and NIH Pioneer Award. He serves as an Associate Editor for PLoS Computational Biology, and the contact PI for NIH 4D Nucleome organizational hub.