Introduction:
Prof. Cheng Li graduated from the Department of Astronomy at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in 2006 with a Ph.D. in Astrophysics. He conducted postdoctoral research at the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) (2006–2007) and the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Germany (2007–2010). From 2010 to 2015, he served as a Research Professor at the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory and Leader of the CAS-MPG Partner Group. He was a Professor in the Department of Physics at Tsinghua University (2015–2019) and has been a Professor in the Department of Astronomy at Tsinghua University since 2019. He has received numerous honors, including the First-Class Prize of Shanghai Science and Technology Award (2009), CAS's "Recruitment Program of Global Experts" (Hundred Talents Program, 2010), Shanghai's "Pujiang Talent Program" (2011), and the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (2014–2017). From 2015 to 2022, he served as Chair of the 13th and 14th Galaxy and Cosmology Commission of the Chinese Astronomical Society. His research focuses on galaxy structure and evolution, interstellar and circumgalactic media, and the large-scale structure of the universe. Key contributions include precise measurements of galaxy mass functions using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), systematic studies of galaxy clustering dependencies on stellar mass and star formation activity, and the discovery of no significant correlation between active galactic nuclei and galaxy interactions. He was deeply involved in the SDSS-IV/MaNGA survey (2014–2020), serving as Co-Chair of the MaNGA Science Team, Chair of the MaNGA Data Products Committee, and member of the MaNGA Executive Committee. His work revealed the star formation histories, dust extinction curves, and initial mass functions of nearby galaxies, identifying the universal "inside-out quenching" in massive galaxies. To date, he has published over 180 papers, with 19,000+ citations and an H-index of 59. He has been consecutively named to Elsevier's "Highly Cited Chinese Researchers" list from 2020 to 2024.
