Yan Li

Yan Li studied architecture at Tianjin University, obtaining her PhD in 2007 with a dissertation on military fortresses of nine defense areas along the Great Wall in the Ming dynasty. She has been a visiting scholar at the Fine Art Department of Louisville University in US and an academic visitor at the Needham Research Institute, funded by a Xing-Zhi scholarship in the UK. From 2013 to present she has been an associate professor at Tianjin University.

Yan’s current research focuses on the GIS database and spatial analysis of the military defense system of the Ming Great Wall. She published the book Gazetteer of the Great Wall of China (Volume 4) Border Town-Fortress-Pass (2.5 million words) and The Military Defense System and the Military Settlements along the Ming Great Wall.

In addition to her academic research, on architecture design, Yan was awarded the First Prize of the Second Batch of Outstanding Examples of Rural Architecture by Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development of PRC as collaborators in 2016. She has been a member of the Dwelling Architecture Committee of National Architecture Institute of China since 2014 and a member of the Great Wall Institute of China since 2009.