Hengde Li, was born on June 30,1921 in Luoyang, Henan Province in China. He graduated from the National Northwestern College of Engineering of China in 1942 with a B.S. degree in Mining and Metallurgy. He worked in a steel works and then in an aircraft company from 1942 to 1945 before he went to USA in 1946 to pursue his graduate studies.
He attended Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh and obtained Ms M.S. in 1947 and started his career as a materials scientist since then. He worked one year under Prof. Paul Beck in Notre Dame University and finally moved to University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia to finish his Doctor's degree in 1953 under the direction of Prof. R. M. Brick and to work as a research associate until he returned to China in 1954.
He became an associate and then full professor of Tsinghua University, Beijing, China since 1955. He established the Nuclear Materials Division of the Department of Engineering Physics of Tsinghua University in 1956 and later on became the director of that Department in 1982-1986. He served as the director of the Institute of Materials of Research of Tsinghua University from 1979 to 1997. From 1986 to 1994 he served also as the director of the Department of Materials and Engineering Sciences of the newly formed National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC). He was consecutively elected as the President of Chinese Materials Research Society (C-MRS) both in 1991 and 1995, each term for 4 years. He was also elected in 1996 in Boston as the First Vice President of the International Union of Materials Research Societies (IUMRS) to serve the term for 1997 and 1998 and also the President of IUMRS for the years of 1999 and 2000. He seated in a number of national award committees. In 1994 he was elected as a member of the newly founded Chinese Academy of Engineering.