Dr. Li is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Tsinghua University (Beijing, China). Before joining Tsinghua in July 2022, he was a Research Associate working with Professor Robert Wood in both the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) at Harvard University (2015-2022). He was also affiliated with the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), working with Professor Daniela Rus from 2014 to 2022. Dr. Li received his Ph.D. degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Northwestern Polytechnical University (Xi’an, China) in 2013. He also studied in the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Cornell University as a visiting Ph.D. student (2008-2009) and a Postdoctoral Fellow (2014), both under the supervision of Professor Hod Lipson (now at Columbia University).

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His current research interests include origami robotics, collective robotics, and soft robotics. His research articles have appeared in leading academic journals including Nature, PNAS, and Science Robotics, and have been covered by various media outlets globally, including NPR, BBC, Wired Magazine, Discovery News, Scientific American, Forbes, Associated Press, MIT Technology Review, National Geographic, etc.