Coming from a humble background in Chengdu, China, Professor Li helped her parents work all types of jobs to survive as a family while attending school. When she was a teenager, Professor Li immigrated with her family to Parsippany, New Jersey to attend high school. As an avid reader since childhood, Li learned English quickly: she had only learned English for two years before she was already a full-time translator for her family. In addition, Li's intellectual curiosity and eagerness to learn led her high school teacher to teach her advanced calculus, a class that wasn't offered at her school, during lunch breaks.
Her hard work paid off when she was accepted into Princeton University as a physics major, and she studied computer science and engineering there as well. During this time, she borrowed money from friends and her high school math teacher to start a dry cleaning business to help her parents make money. Professor Li helped run her family's businesses every weekend while keeping up with her studies during the weekdays.
✦ Princeton University- Physics Bachelor degree, studying computer science and engineering
✦ Caltech- Electrical Engineering Masters and PhD degree, studying computational neuroscience and artificial intelligence
✦ Stanford University- Professor of Computer Science
✦ Artificial intelligence ✦ Machine learning ✦ Computer vision ✦ Inclusive AI ✦ Interdisciplinary AI ✦
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