The 2022 graduate was honored for research on the role of energy system decarbonization and land surface properties on urban air quality in Southern California.
Yun Li, USC PhD ’22, received the USC PhD Achievement Award for 2022. The award, established in 2012, is part of the USC Graduate School’s ongoing effort to support and recognize exemplary research. Students are selected based on their record of success including significant publications as the sole or primary author; job offers that signal the outstanding quality of the student’s doctoral work; major awards in a broadly conceived field; and other markers of excellence appropriate to the student’s field.
Yun Li was born in Changsha, China, and raised in Beijing, China. She went to Peking University (China) in 2012 and received her bachelor’s degree in environmental science in 2016. She worked as an undergraduate researcher with Dr. Junfeng Liu and earned interests in applying science to solve air pollution problems. Yun joined the Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in Fall 2016 to pursue a PhD in environmental engineering. She was co-advised by Dr. George Ban-Weiss (1981 – 2021) before joining S3 group (Associate Professor Kelly Sanders’ research group) in Fall 2021.