Dr. Li has dual appointment as Professor in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Virginia. He completed an orthopaedic surgery residency at the University of Virginia. He followed his internship and residency with a comprehensive spine surgery fellowship at the world-renowned Columbia Spine Hospital.

Dr. Li has advanced expertise in a wide range of spinal procedures from microscope-assisted cervical artificial disc replacement to the most complex spinal reconstruction for scoliosis. He has clinical interests include degenerative disorders of the cervical, thoracic, and lumbar spine (herniated disc, spinal stenosis, etc.); spinal deformities (scoliosis, kyphosis, flatback syndrome, etc.), spinal tumors, metastatic spine disease, spine trauma, minimally invasive spine surgery, robotic assisted spine surgery, and motion-sparing technology (artificial disc replacement). His research interests include intervertebral disc biology, cervical spinal surgery, scoliosis surgery, and clinical outcomes and epidemiology of spinal surgery.