Ting Li
University of Toronto

Citation: For her seminal contributions, discoveries and leadership in near-field cosmology.

Bio: Dr. Ting Li is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Toronto. Born and raised in Shanghai, China, Li completed her undergraduate studies in physics with a minor in diplomacy at Fudan University in 2008. She further pursued a Joint European Master’s Program in Space Science and Technology through the prestigious Erasmus Mundus Scholarship before earning her PhD in physics from Texas A&M University.

Li’s research focuses on understanding the structure and evolution of the Milky Way and nearby galaxies, particularly the formation and evolution of small galaxies and the nature of dark matter. She is an expert in analyzing large astronomical datasets from cutting-edge surveys, complemented by observations using the world’s largest optical and near-infrared telescopes. Li is also deeply involved in developing novel astronomical instruments and contributing to the infrastructure of groundbreaking surveys such as the Dark Energy Survey (DES) and the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), where she has served as a working group chair.

In addition, Li is the founder and Principal Investigator of the Southern Stellar Stream Spectroscopic Survey (S5), an innovative effort to map stellar streams across the Southern Hemisphere, providing critical insights into the Milky Way’s mass profile and dark matter distribution.

Prior to her position in Toronto, Li held prestigious fellowships, including the Leon Lederman Fellowship at Fermilab, and a joint appointment as a NASA Hubble Fellowship Program Einstein Fellow and the Carnegie-Princeton Fellowship at Carnegie Observatories and Princeton University.

Personal Website: https://sazabi4.github.io
Group Website: https://s5collab.github.io/