Li is a staff physicist in Oak Ridge National Laboratory with an Adjunct Professor appointment in The University of Tennessee. Before joining ORNL in 2002, he held a Senior R&D Scientist position in Galian Photonics Inc. He obtained his PhD degree in physics from Peking University in 1997 and worked on nano-porous alumina as a Max-Planck-Society Fellow in Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics from 1997 to 1999. He has published 50 papers that have been cited more than 1,900 times. His current research interest is electrical transport and novel functionalities in nanostructured materials.