Youli Li

Biography

Youli Li received his Ph.D in biophysics in 1992 at Brandeis University, advised by renowned biophysicist D.L.D Caspar. After conducting postdoctoral research with Dr. Walter Phillips, he joined the Materials Research Laboratory at UC Santa Barbara in 1994, where he is currently a research physicist and technical director of the core x-ray diffraction facility. Since 2020, Dr. Li has led the research and development efforts in the X-ray Diffraction platform for the BioPACIFIC. His research efforts focus on developing techniques, instrumentation tools, and analysis methods for advanced x-ray diffraction characterization of materials. He invented the scatterless x-ray slit technology which has become widely used in laboratory and synchrotron based small angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) instruments.

Job Responsibilities

The X-ray Diffraction Facility provides x-ray diffraction characterization in support of a broad range of research programs at UCSB. Our research program has two broad fronts: 1.) to develop new methods, techniques and instruments to advance the capabilities of XRD, and 2.) to apply XRD in complex materials characterization to understand the structural properties from angstrom to sub-micrometer scale.