Professor Xiaosong Li was elected to the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science with a new cohort of members at its annual meeting in Berkeley, Calif., May 30-31, 2026.
Election to the Academy is for life and is the highest honor in the field of quantum molecular chemistry.
Members are chosen among the international community of scientists who have distinguished themselves by the value of their scientific work, their role as a pioneer or leader of a school in the broad field of the application of quantum mechanics to the study of molecules and macromolecules. The Academy endeavors to provide a forum for international contact and collaboration and provide a periodical evaluation of the main developments and promising directions of research in the field of quantum molecular science.
Li conducts research at the intersection of physics, chemistry, materials science, mathematics and scientific computing, and he has developed widely used computational software. A UW faculty member since 2005, Prof. Li's honors include a Sloan Research Fellowship, the NSF CAREER Award, the American Chemical Society Jack Simons Award in Theoretical Physical Chemistry, and the University of Washington Distinguished Teaching Award. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), American Physical Society (APS), and the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), and an elected member of the Washington State Academy of Sciences.
Li is the Larry R. Dalton Endowed Chair in Chemistry and Senior Associate Dean for Research in the College of Arts & Sciences. In addition to his faculty appointments in the Department of Chemistry, he holds adjunct appointments in the Department of Physics and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and is a Lab Fellow at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.