Biography
Prof Li Xiaoli joined SUTD on 15 August 2025 as Head of the Information Systems Technology and Design (ISTD) Pillar. In this role, he provides strategic leadership in academic programme development, research direction, and industry engagement across the Pillar.
Prof Li brings over 30 years of combined experience in academia and industry. Before joining SUTD, he was the Department Head of Machine Intellection at A*STAR Institute for Infocomm Research (I²R), where he led more than 100 scientists to develop cutting-edge AI technologies that delivered high-impact solutions across diverse sectors. He also served as the Technical Director of the Sectoral AI Centre of Excellence for Manufacturing (AIMfg)—a national initiative supported by the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) with a funding of S$35.8 million.
He has been a trusted advisor and technical panel member for several key government agencies, including the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), Ministry of Education (MOE), Ministry of Health (MOH), and the Smart Nation and Digital Government Office (SNDGO) under the Prime Minister’s Office. In academia, he has held adjunct faculty appointments at both the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU).
Prof Li is internationally recognised in the AI community and has held leadership roles at top-tier conferences including NeurIPS, ICLR, KDD, ICDM, WWW, IJCAI, AAAI, ACL, and EMNLP—serving as Conference Chair, Area Chair, Workshop Chair, and Session Chair.
He has published over 380 research papers in leading AI and data science conferences and journals. He is currently an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence. His research excellence is widely acknowledged—he has been named a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher and is listed among the world’s top 2% scientists by Stanford University.
In addition to his academic credentials, Prof Li has deep industry experience. He has led more than 10 collaborative R&D projects with partners across verticals including aerospace, telecommunications, insurance, and aviation. He has also served as joint lab director with industry leaders such as DBS, Singtel, and KPMG. His expertise in AI, machine learning, and data mining has enabled him to develop innovative solutions addressing complex real-world challenges.