He is also Professor and Principal investigator at the Institute of Genetics and Development at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

[11][1][12][13][14] Li was educated at Anhui Agricultural University in China where he was award a Bachelor's degree in Agronomy in 1982.

[11] He continued his education in the United States where he was awarded a PhD in 1991 from Brandeis University for his research into the enzymes involved in the reduction of sulfate (ATP sulfurylase and adenosine 5'-phosphosulfate sulfotransferase) in the single-celled organism Euglena.

[10] Following his PhD, Li completed postdoctoral research with Robert L. Last at Cornell University.

He has identified and characterized key transcription factors and hormonal signals that determine rice architecture, and he has demonstrated that this fundamental knowledge can contribute to the development of improved rice varieties through marker assisted breeding.Li was also elected a Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in 2001,[2] a Fellow of the Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) in 2004, a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) of the US in 2011, a Member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina in 2012, and a Foreign Member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) in 2013.