Dr. Li has contributed to a wide range of statistical areas, including survival analysis, data science, high-dimensional inference, machine learning, deep learning, spatial data analysis, random-effects models, clinical trial design, and infectious disease modeling.

He is interested in cancer genetics/genomics, radiomics, racial disparity analysis, chronic disease research and opioid overuse research. He has published more than 230 papers in major statistical journals, such as JASA, Biometrika, JRSSB, and Biometrics, as well as premier subject matter journals, such as PNAS, JAMA and JCO. His methodologic research is funded by various NIH statistical grants starting from year 2003. Li is actively involved in collaborative research in cutting-edge clinical and observational studies with researchers from the University of Michigan and Harvard University.