Ping Lin obtained a BSc from Nanjing University in 1984 and a PhD in Applied Mathematics from University of British Columbia in 1996.
After being a postdoctoral fellow in Stanford University for two years, and a research associate in Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, he took up an assistant professor position in National University of Singapore in 1999. He was then promoted to Associate Professor and Professor.
In 2007 he took the Chair of Numerical Analysis position at the University of Dundee.
He held a Leverhulme Research Fellowship and had extended visiting posts in Princeton University, Kyoto University (Hitachi Fellow), Institute of High Performance Computing Singapore (Faculty Associate), University of Paris VI (CNRS Associated Researcher) and University of Science and Technology Beijing.