Li earned both a bachelor's degree and a master's degree from
Tsinghua University, in 1998 and 2000 respectively. She completed her Ph.D. at
Purdue University in 2004. She worked in industry at
Qualcomm,
Intel, and
Seagate Technology on computer memory technology including
static random-access memory,
memristors, and
spintronicss, before returning to academia in 2009 with a position at the
New York University Tandon School of Engineering, then known as the Polytechnic Institute of New York University. She moved from there to the
University of Pittsburgh in 2012, and then to Duke University in 2017, becoming Clare Boothe Luce Associate Professor before her promotion to full professor. In 2025 she was named as the Marie Foote Reel E’46 Distinguished Professor. Li served as general chair of the 2025
Design Automation Conference. ==Recognition==