Elected Academician of the International Eurasian Academy of Sciences in 2011, Professor Xia Li is a distinguished Chinese remote sensing and geographic information scientist whose research has focused on geospatial artificial intelligence, land-use change modelling, and urban remote sensing. Born in 1962, he received his B.S. from the Department of Geography, Peking University, in 1983, his M.S. from the Institute of Remote Sensing Applications, Peking University, in 1986, and his Ph.D. from the Centre of Urban Planning and Environmental Management, the University of Hong Kong, in 1996. He was elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, United Kingdom, in 2020. From 1986 to 2003, he pursued his research career at the Guangzhou Institute of Geography, Guangdong Academy of Sciences, progressing from trainee researcher to research professor and serving as Deputy Director of the Remote Sensing Division. From 2000 to 2003, he also served as Senior Research Assistant at the University of Hong Kong. In 2003, he joined Sun Yat-sen University as Distinguished Professor and subsequently served as Yat-sen Chair Professor from 2010 to 2017. He was awarded the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars in 2005. Since September 2017, he has served as Professor at the School of Geographic Sciences, East China Normal University.