- 9/1987-7/1992 Undergraduate student, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China.
- 9/1992-5/1994 Graduate Research Assistant, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
- 8/1994-7/1999 Graduate Research Assistant, Columbia University in the City of New York
- 8/1999-6/2001 Instructor and Director of Instrument Facility, University of Tennessee HSC (UTHSC)
- 7/2001-6/2004 Assistant Professor and Faculty Director of Shared Analytical Instrument Facility, UTHSC
- 7/2004-6/2009 Assistant Professor (tenure-track) and Faculty Director of Shared Analytical Instrument Facility, UTHSC
- 7/2009-6/2014 Associate Professor (tenured) and Faculty Director of Shared Analytical Instrument Facility, UTHSC
- 7/2014-present Professor and Faculty Director of Shared Analytical Instrument Facility, UTHSC
- 6/2017-present Director of UTHSC College of Pharmacy Drug Discovery Center
- 8/2020-present UTHSC Distinguished Professor
Dr. Li grew up in Shandong Province in China, a northeast province in China that is geographically like Maryland in the US. He obtained his BS degree in chemistry from the University of Science and Technology of China in 1992. After a two-year graduate study at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, he went to Columbia University working with Professor Nick Turro (sadly passed away with pancreatic cancer), and obtained his PhD degree in chemistry in 1999. He has been working at UTHSC College of Pharmacy since 1999. Currently, he is a UTHSC Distinguished Professor, the Director of UTCoP Drug Discovery Center, and the Faculty Director of the UTCoP Shared Instrument Facility. He teaches some medicinal chemistry lectures to UTHSC Pharmacy students; teaches certain graduate courses; mentors junior faculty members; and advises research faculty and staff, postdoctoral researchers and graduate students working in his research lab. Dr. Li founded SEAK Therapeutics LLC in 2018, a UTHSC spin-off company aiming to develop patented small molecules invented in his lab as potentially more agents for cancer and neurodegenerative diseases.