Yuanwei Li is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University, advised by Prof. Jennifer Dionne. She works at the interface of chemistry, photonics, and materials science. Her postdoc research focuses on developing high-Q metasurfaces and modular molecular probes for biosensing and detection. She is also designing and synthesizing novel nanoparticles and their assemblies for photocatalysis and Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS). 

She received her PhD in Chemical Engineering at Northwestern University, advised by Prof. Chad Mirkin. Her PhD research focuses on functional nanostructured superlattices through geometry-inspired design principles. 

The long-term goal of her research is to use inverse design principles to synthesize functional lattices with target physical and chemical properties for specific applications, such as catalysis, medical diagnostics and therapeutics, electronics, and robotics.