Rate My Professor Xiaodong Li

Xiaodong (Chris) Li is the Rolls-Royce Commonwealth Professor and Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Virginia, a position he has held since August 2013. Previously, he served as the CEC Distinguished Professor in Mechanical Engineering at the University of South Carolina from October 2009 to September 2012. His research expertise encompasses additive manufacturing, smart manufacturing, nanomaterial-enabled energy systems, biological and bio-inspired materials and devices, biomechanics, micro/nanomechanics, surface engineering, and tribology. Dr. Li has authored over 314 peer-reviewed journal articles in leading publications including Science, Science Advances, Nature Communications, Advanced Materials, and Physical Review Letters. Notable publications include 'Tailoring Nanocomposite Interfaces with Graphene to Achieve High Strength and Toughness' in Science Advances (2020), 'Cotton-Textile-Enabled Flexible Self-Sustaining Power Packs via Roll-to-Roll Fabrication' in Nature Communications (2016), and 'Hydrogen Passivation Induced Dispersion of Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes' in Advanced Materials (2012). His work has garnered over 27,504 citations with an h-index of 89 and has been featured in over 1,000 media outlets worldwide, such as BBC, Discovery News, Science Daily, and MSNBC. His innovation on cotton textile-based composites was selected by the New York Times as a Year in Ideas for 2010.

Dr. Li has received numerous accolades, including recognition as one of the World’s Top 2% Scientists, the Department of Energy VTO Distinguished Achievement Award, the TMS MPMD Distinguished Scientist/Engineer Award, the Professional Engineering Publisher's PE Prize, the UVa Distinguished Researcher Award, and the UVa SEAS Distinguished Faculty Award. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the Society of Experimental Mechanics (SEM). Dr. Li has delivered over 90 invited plenary lectures, keynotes, and talks at international conferences and workshops. He served as Associate Editor for Transactions of the ASME - Applied Mechanics Reviews from 2014 to 2018, sits on the editorial boards of over twelve journals, reviews for 230 journals including Science and Nature series, and was the elected chair of the TMS nanomechanical materials behavior committee.