Our team members

  • Dr Zili Li

    PI; Senior Lecturer
    School of Engineering and Architecture, UCC

  • Dr Andrea Visentin

    Co-PI; Lecturer
    School of Computer Science, UCC

  • James Loney

    Societal Champion
    McCurdy Associates Consulting Engineers Ltd

  • Dr Kai Zhao

    Postdoctoral researcher
    School of Engineering and Architecture, UCC

  • Dr Javed Ahmed

    Research fellow
    School of Engineering and Architecture, UCC

Biography

Dr Zili Li graduated with a PhD in Geotechnical Engineering in 2015 from the University of Cambridge, UK. He has postdoctoral work experience in Colorado School of Mines, US and currently work as a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Geotechnical Engineering at University College Cork, Ireland. He worked as a visiting Professor / Scientist at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA in 2022-2023 during his sabbatical research leave.

Since his employment at UCC in 2016, he has secured €2+ million research grant as the PI, including prestigious SFI Frontiers for the Future Programme (€612.8k total budget) (top-tier independent research grant). He is the chair of ISMLG 2023 (the 4th International Symposium of Machine Learning and Big Data in Geoscience), 29th August to 1st September 2023, University College Cork, Ireland https://ismlg2023.com.

In addition, Dr. Li leads the monitoring and assessment of world-class CERN tunnel projects (€405k) for Large Hardon Collider (LHC), funded by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) at Geneva Switzerland. He is also the Leader of Task Force ‘Big Data Acquisition’ in TC309 Machine Learning & Big Data at International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE).