Teng Mei Liu was born in Tianjin, China and graduated from Nankai in 1917, a classmate of Zhou Enlai, who later became the first Premier of the People’s Republic of China. Liu then went to Japan, studying economics at Keio University. Zhou and other fellow Nankai alumni, such as Yueah Ma and Pao Shou Kao, both of whom came to Grinnell College in 1919, also studied in Japan around that time. In 1917 Liu, Ma, and other Nankai alumni founded the New China Study Society 新中學會 to promote national rejuvenation. 

Liu came to Grinnell in 1920 and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in economics and history in 1921, the same year that Ming Wei Wen graduated (SB 06/13/1921). Unlike Wen, he was not particularly visible, judging by the coverage of the student newspaper Scarlet and Black, perhaps because a large cohort of Nankai alumni, including his former comrades, Yueah Ma and Pao Shou Kao, had either transferred or graduated by the time he arrived on campus. Liu went on to earn a master’s degree in economics from the University of Chicago. He taught business at his alma mater Nankai University after returning to China but drowned in Tianjin on July 21, 1926 (TKP 10/28/1926).