Peipei Qiu joined the Vassar faculty in 1994 after teaching Japanese for two years on a tenure-track position at the College at Lincoln Center, Fordham University. Having received her M.A. in Japanese Studies at Peking University, she worked as an Assistant Research Fellow at the Institute of Japanese Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and spent a year doing research as a Japan Foundation Fellow at the Faculty of Letters, University of Tokyo. She earned her M.Phil. and Ph.D. in Japanese literature at Columbia University.

Since 1991, Dr. Qiu has focused her research on comparative studies of Japanese and Chinese poetry and received funding for her study on Japanese comic linked verse from The Japan Foundation and The Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.

Dr. Qiu's works in English, Japanese, and Chinese have been published in the United States, Japan, and China. She is the recipient of a number of honors and grants, among them are The Mellon Foundation Grant, The Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Fellowship, Columbia University President's Fellowship, The Japan Foundation Dissertation Research Fellowship, Suntory Japanese Studies Fellowship, and The Japan Foundation Fellowship for professional researchers.

Dr. Qiu's teaching interests include Japanese literature and language, women in East Asian literature, and multimedia technology in the classroom.