Dr. Changxiao Li is a professor at the College of Life Sciences of Southwest University in Chongqing, China, where he received his Ph.D. in 2003, and a former Humphrey fellow at Cornell University from 2008 – 2009. He was a short-term visiting scholar of EcoAgriculture Partners from May through June 2009. He teaches courses in Ecology, Natural Resources, Watershed Management, and Biostatistics. He has also been the Chief Expert of the State Key Laboratory of Seedling Bioengineering in Yinchuan, Ningxia, China since 2010. He now serves as a member of the National Expert Committee for the State Nature Reserves in the Ministry of Environmental Protection of China.

Li has over 25 years of experience in ecological restoration and integrated ecosystem management. He began his career as a forestry program officer working with local farmers and agencies in 1991, and got his Community Forestry Certificate at Asia-Pacific Regional Community Forestry Training Center (RECOFTC) in Bangkok in 1995. Besides his abundant practical experiences working with a wide range of partners such as the FAO, UNDP, WWF, GTZ, Ford Foundation, the US-China Friendship Volunteers (Peace Corps China) and others in the field of ecology and environment, he is also a widely published researcher, and globally-involved project leader of ecological restoration and other environmental study issues, including those connected to China’s mammoth Three Gorges Dam Reservoir Region (TGDR) in the Yangtze River.