Lili leads the Sustainable Innovation Lab at Centre for Human Inspired Artificial Intelligence, University of Cambridge. She is a visitor at the Department of Engineering. Lili is interested in discovering real-world pathways to social, environmental and economic sustainability. Her research focuses on modelling sustainable behaviours, designing scalable technologies, and developing systemic strategies for sustainability transitions
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Lili has published 20 high-impact articles and reports that change our understanding, design, and development of sustainability solutions. Three of her publications have received journal awards. Her article on "Motivating actions to mitigate plastic pollution" was among the Top 50 Earth and Planetary Sciences Articles 2019 in Nature Communications.
Lili's article in Harvard Business Review helped food companies and policymakers understand how to improve the measure of sustainability in food industry systemically with digital traceability technologies. Her research findings have provided scientific evidence for policy development. They supported the Environment Agency in officially expanding its scope to beyond legal compliance in the Regulatory Statement 2022. They were included in the UK’s Green Finance Strategy 2023 and the Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs’ Food Data Transparency Partnership roadmap.

Lili has raised over £1.5mn research grants since 2017, such as EPSRC and ESRC Fellowships. She serves on the Editorial Board of Scientific Reports.