Rate My Professor Christopher Li

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.