Soetoro-Ng and Obama spent several years together in Indonesia and in Hawaii before her mother decided to return to Indonesia with her. After her parents divorced in 1980, her father remarried. From this marriage, Soetoro-Ng has another half-brother, Yusuf Aji Soetoro (b. 1981), and a half-sister, Rahayu Nurmaida Soetoro (b. 1984).

While living in Indonesia, Soetoro-Ng was home-schooled by her mother and then attended Jakarta International School from 1981 to 1984. Like Obama, Soetoro-Ng returned to Hawaii and attended the private Punahou School in Honolulu, Hawaii, graduating in 1988.

In 2003, Maya Soetoro married Konrad Ng (Simplified Chinese: 吴加儒), a Chinese Canadian from Burlington, Ontario, Canada. Ng, who is of Malaysian Chinese descent, is now also a US citizen. He was the director of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center and an assistant professor at the University of Hawaii’s Academy of Creative Media. He is now the executive director of the Doris Duke Shangri La Center for Islamic Arts and Culture in Hawaii in Honolulu, Hawaii. They have two daughters, Suhaila and Savita.

Soetoro-Ng received her B.A. degree from Barnard College of Columbia University. She then received an M.A. in secondary language studies and an M.A. in Secondary Education from New York University. In 2006, she received a Ph.D. in international comparative education from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa.

In May 2007, Soetoro-Ng announced that she would assist Obama in his campaign for presidency, and took two months off to campaign for him. She participated in the 2008 Democratic National Convention, where she spoke briefly about growing up with her brother and brought an Asian-American presence to the stage.

In 2009, Soetoro-Ng helped bring her mother’s dissertation to publication in the form of the book Surviving against the Odds: Village Industry in Indonesia. She wrote a foreword to the book and participated in its launch at the American Anthropological Association annual meeting.

Soetoro-Ng was an assistant professor at the Institute for Teacher Education at the University of Hawai’i College of Education and continues to do some consulting work, promoting international exchange and understanding, in partnership with the East West Center. She authored a children’s book, Ladder to the Moon, that was inspired by her mother and her daughter, Suhaila; it was published in 2011. She is working on a book about peace education and a young adult novel entitled Yellowood.

Soetoro-Ng also spoke briefly about the Obama administration’s accomplishments at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, on September 4, 2012, sharing the podium with First Lady Michelle Obama’s older brother, former Oregon State University men’s basketball team head coach, Craig Robinson.

In 2019, Soetoro-Ng, along with Todd Shuster and Jennifer Gates cofounded The Peace Studio: a non-profit organization whose mission is to support, train and unite the next generation of artists, journalists and storytellers to inspire people everywhere to become active peacebuilders.