Tianxiang Li received a B.S. and a M.S in the Dept. of Engineering Thermophysics from University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), and a Ph.D. in the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering from the University of Kentucky (UK). He was on faculties of USTC and had served as the visiting research assistants at the University of California at Davis in 1984, and Princeton University in 1992 where he was supervised by the Robert H. Goddard Professor, Chung K. Law. He was the Research Associate Professor at the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering of UK, until June 2015 when he was retired. He was then employed as a Research Associate Professor at the Dept. of Energy, Environmental, and Chemical Engineering of Washington University at St. Louis until December 2018.

Li’s research expertise is in combustion and energy utilization, pollutant generation and control, hazardous waste management, energetic fuel and combustion, flame synthesis of nanomaterials, biofuel synthesis and combustion, iron ore sintering process, and application of triboelectrostatics.  He has extensive research experience in combustion and energy utilization in industrial combustion devices.  He has generated more than 70 journal-class articles in these areas, held two patents and two intellectual properties, and been honored with the Great Achievement of Science and Technology Award.  He is the member of The Combustion Institute (International) committee, ASME committee on combustion and heat transfer, and TMS committee on light metal.