Zhang Li is a Professor at Aerospace Information Research (AIR) Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). She serves as the Vice Director of the Key Laboratory of Digital Earth Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); Head of Science and Technology Innovation Department, the International Research Center of Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals (CBAS); the Vice Director of the Key Laboratory of Earth Observation of Hainan Province; and the Chair of the DBAR-COAST Working Group. Her research interests primarily lie in the fields of remote sensing applications for ecosystem and land-surface dynamics, carbon cycling and coastal environment monitoring. She has been the PI for more than 30 national and provincial sponsored projects and published over 160 scientific papers and 4 scientific books as the first author.She has been honored with several prizes and awards.

She received her Master degree in Geography from South Dakota State University (SDSU), United States of America, and a Ph.D. degree from the Beijing Normal University (BNU). With the beginning of her professional career in 1998, she started serving at the Chinese Academy of Surveying and Mapping, China, untill 2003. From 2005 to 2007, she performed her duties as an environmental scientist at the United States Geological Survey (USGS), Earth Resources Observation and Science Center (EROS), United States of America. Since 2008, she worked at the Key Laboratory of Digital Earth Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).