My name is Can Li (Chinese: 李燦), and I am currently an associate professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) of the University of Hong Kong (HKU), where I also serve as the Associate Director of the Centre for Advanced Semiconductors and Integrated Circuits (CASIC) and the Programme Director of the BEng in Electronic Engineering. I work on analog and neuromorphic computing accelerators based on post-CMOS emerging devices (e.g., memristors), for efficient machine/deep learning, network security, signal processing, etc. Before that, I spent two years at Hewlett Packard Labs in Palo Alto, California, and obtained my Ph.D. from University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and B.S./M.S. from Peking University.
Professional Activities
Societies
- Elected Member-at-Large, Board of Governors, IEEE Electron Devices Society (EDS), 2026 – present
- Chair, IEEE EDS Ad-hoc Committee on Conference Submission Platform Development, 2023 – present
- Member, IEEE EDS Neuromorphic Technical Committee, 2024 – present
- Member, IEEE EDS Meetings and Conferences Committee, 2024 – present
Conferences
- Executive committee: IEEE EDTM 26
- Conference chairs: Publication Co-Chair of IEEE EDTM 26; Publication Chair and Track Chair (Memory Technology) of IEEE EDTM 25
- TPC member: DAC 22-25, ICCAD 23-25, ASP-DAC 23-25, DATE 24/25, IEEE EDTM 21/22, ICTA 20/21/22/25, …
- Session chairs: EIPBN 18, IEEE ICTA 21, IUMRS 21, ISMC 21/24, IEEE EDTM 22/25, ASP-DAC 23, ACCESS Technology Symposium 23/24, …
Journals
- Guest Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Journal of the Electron Devices Society, 2025
- Editorial Advisory board of APL Machine learning
- Guest editor of IOP Neuromorphic Computing and Engineering
- Focus issue on 3D Circuits for Neuromorphic Computing
- Focus issue on Open Neuromorphic Simulations
- Guest editor of Frontiers in Electronics
- Focus topic on Advanced Solid-State Memory Technology and Applications
- Reviewer:
- Nature, Nature Electronics, Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Materials, Nature Computational Science, Nature Communications, Science Advances, ACS Nano, Nano Letters, etc.
Grant Review
- Reviewer and interview panelist for national and international research funding agencies
Recognition
- Clarivate Highly Cited Researchers, 2025
- Top 1% worldwide by citation by Clarivate Analytics, 2022-2025
- Croucher Tak Wah Mak Innovation Award, 2023
- RGC Early Career Awards (HKSAR), 2021
- NSFC Excellent Young Scientists Fund (港澳優青), 2021
Contest
- 1st Prize in National Undergraduate Electronic Design Contest (China), 2008
- 2nd Prize in PKU Programming Contest, 2006
- 1st Prize in Chinese Physics Olympiad, 2004