Li was presented with the James E. Avant Garde Award at the 2013 IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference, held September 2-5 in Las Vegas. This award, which is given by the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society, honors leadership and continuing contributions in promoting new technology in the vehicular communications and electronics field. He was specifically recognized for his work in advancing the state-of-the-art in OFDM-aided wireless communications.

Li was also honored with the IEEE Communications Society WTC Wireless Recognition Award at IEEE GLOBECOM 2013, which was held December 9-13 in Atlanta. This award is given to a person who has a high degree of visibility and contributions in the field of wireless and mobile communications theory, systems, and networks. Specifically, he was recognized "for his outstanding technical contributions in the field and for his service to the scientific engineering communities."

As the leader of the Information Transmission and Processing Laboratory in ECE, Li and his group conduct research in the areas of statistical signal processing and communications, cross-layer optimization for spectral- and energy-efficient wireless networks, practical issues in wireless systems, and cognitive radio and opportunistic spectrum access.

Elected an IEEE Fellow in 2006, Li is the general chair for the 2014 IEEE Global Conference on Signal and Image Processing, to be held December 3-5 in Atlanta. He received the 2010 Stephen O. Rice Prize Paper Award from the IEEE Communications Society and has been heavily involved in editorial activities for more than 10 IEEE journals.