Qiaoxi Li

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Papers

Total Citations

402

H-Index

About

Qiaoxi Li is a materials scientist whose research sits at the dynamic intersection of polymer physics, smart materials, and soft actuator technologies. Best known for pioneering work on shape memory polymers and electroactive elastomers, Li has made significant contributions to the fundamental understanding and practical engineering of stimuli-responsive materials. Their landmark 2014 paper, "Shapeshifting: Reversible Shape Memory in Semicrystalline Elastomers," which has garnered over 200 citations, introduced an elegant general strategy for achieving reversible shape transformations by unifying three distinct shape memory behaviors within a single material platform — a conceptual advance that reshaped the field. Building on this foundation, Li co-developed bottlebrush elastomers as a versatile new class of freestanding dielectric actuators, enabling giant reversible strokes at low electric fields without the cumbersome prestraining typically required — work reflected in nearly 200 citations to the 2016 publication. Li's subsequent research explored self-healing inherently pre-strained elastomers as next-generation artificial muscles, addressing the critical challenge of electromechanical instability. Collectively, Li's body of work offers transformative insights for the design of soft robotics, biomedical devices, and adaptive functional materials.