Assistant Professor Chosen as 2024 Ecological Society of America Early Career Fellow

Biological Sciences Assistant Professor Daijiang Li has been chosen as a 2024 Ecological Society of America Early Career Fellow for his pioneering research, dedicated mentorship and tireless advocacy to improve science. Li is among 10 Early Career Fellows nationwide who have been elected by ESA this year.

Early Career Fellows are ESA members within eight years of receiving their PhD who continue to make outstanding contributions to various fields served by ESA. Such contributions can include advancing or applying ecological knowledge in academics, government, nonprofit organizations and the private sector. They are elected for five years.

“ I'm very grateful for the support I have received here and I couldn't do what I am doing without the support from my department, my chair, my mentors and the dean as well. ”

Li received his M.S. from Sun Yat-Sen University in China, and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He's been at LSU for nearly four years and is passionate about working as a community ecologist. Li is interested in how communities are organized together and how species coexist within different environments. 

He also collects and analyzes long-term plant community datasets using advanced statistical methods while answering large-scale ecological questions with big data and bioinformatics. Li is currently in the middle of building a global database of plant phenology (PhenoBase), or the timing of plants and stages of their growth.

"I think it's a motivation for me to keep going and to create a supportive environment for everyone in the lab and beyond," said Li.