Ying Li is an Assistant Professor of Practice in Urban Studies at NYU Shanghai and a practicing architect. Her career spans a broad range of projects including cultural buildings, institutional buildings, office and mixed-use designs and residential developments. She received her bachelor's and master's degrees in Architecture from the University of Melbourne, and later earned her Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Studies from Columbia University.

ChengHe Guan and Ying Li have published over 50 academic papers, more than 40 are in internationally renowned journals indexed in SCIE/SSCI including Nature Communications, Cities, Environmental and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, Urban Forestry & Greening.