Rate My Professor Christopher Li

Christopher Li is a Professor of Materials Science and Engineering in the College of Engineering at Drexel University, where he also serves as Graduate Advisor. He earned his B.S. in Polymer Chemistry from the University of Science and Technology of China in 1995 and his Ph.D. in Polymer Science from The University of Akron in 1999. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at the Maurice Morton Institute of Polymer Science at The University of Akron from 2000 to 2001, he joined Drexel University in January 2002 as an Assistant Professor, advancing to Associate Professor in 2007 and full Professor in 2011. Additional appointments include Chair Professor at Soochow University since 2013 and Visiting Associate Professor at the Max-Planck Institute for Polymer Research in 2010.

Li's research centers on the structure-morphology-property relationships of complex soft and hybrid materials, with a focus on ordered polymeric systems such as crystalline, liquid crystalline, and block copolymers for energy storage and biomedical applications. His group explores polymer crystal engineering for functional materials and designs polymers for energy and sustainability. Recent achievements include back-to-back NSF grants: one for patterned solid polymer electrolytes in solid-state batteries to study lithium and sodium electrodeposition, and another for co-crystallization assembly of nanoparticles and polymers for bioimaging and drug delivery. He has authored over 200 peer-reviewed papers, with key publications including 'Crystalsome: Highly Robust Nanocapsules via Directed Polymer Crystallization at Curved Liquid/Liquid Interface' (Nature Communications, 2016), 'Hybrid Electrolytes with Controlled Network Structures for Lithium Metal Batteries' (Advanced Materials, 2015), and 'Precisely Assembled Cyclic Gold Nanoparticle Frames by 2D Polymer Single-Crystal Templating' (Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 2017). His work has garnered over 14,900 citations and an h-index of 60 per Google Scholar. Li is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (2012) and the North American Thermal Analysis Society (2014, President 2016). Major awards include the NSF CAREER Award (2003-2008), Inaugural Provost’s Award for Outstanding Mid-Career Scholarly Achievement (2016), multiple Drexel Outstanding Research Awards (2016, 2012, 2010, 2006), and the University of Akron Outstanding Alumni Award (2017). He serves on editorial advisory boards for Macromolecules, ACS Macro Letters, Polymer, and Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry.