Yifei Li is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at NYU Shanghai and Global Network Assistant Professor at NYU. Prior to joining NYU Shanghai, he taught sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In the 2020-2021 academic year, he is also a Residential Fellow at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society in Munich.

Professor Li’s research concerns both the macro-level implications of Chinese environmental governance for state-society relations, marginalized populations, and global ecological sustainability, as well as the micro-level bureaucratic processes of China’s state interventions into the environmental realm. He has received research support from the United States National Science Foundation, the University of Chicago Center in Beijing, and the China Times Cultural Foundation, among other extramural sources. He is coauthor (with Judith Shapiro) of China Goes Green: Coercive Environmentalism for a Troubled Planet. His recent work appears in Current Sociology, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Environmental Sociology, Journal of Environmental Management, and other scholarly outlets. More information about Professor Li is available on his website.

Education

• PhD, Sociology
  University of Wisconsin-Madison
• MS, Sociology
  University of Wisconsin-Madison
• LL.B., Sociology
  Fudan University

Courses Taught

• Environment and Society
• Global China Studies Independent Study
• Global Environmental Politics
• Nature in Social Thought
• Social Science Capstone Seminar
• Social Science Honors Independent Study
• Urban Sociology