Congying Li

Background

About Congying Li

Dr. Congying Li has studied and worked in six countries across China, Europe, and Australia. She earned her B.Eng. in Hydrology and Water Resources Engineering from Zhengzhou University, China, in 2011. Supported by an Erasmus Mundus Grant, she pursued an MSc in Europe, earning two MSc. degrees from UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education (Netherlands) and the University of Lodz (Poland) in 2013, complemented by a summer school program at the University of Algarve (Portugal) in 2012. In recognition of her contributions to sustainable development, Congying received the prestigious Green Talents Award (2013) and was invited for a research stay in Germany in 2014. After moving to Australia, she completed her PhD at the University of Melbourne in 2020. She later joined Monash University as a Lecturer in 2021 and transitioned to the University of Newcastle in August 2024.Dr. Li possesses strong expertise and passion for water research, particularly in sustainable urban stormwater management through Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) and Sponge City concepts. With nearly a decade of research experience, she has worked on projects ranging from laboratory to catchment scales, using experimental methods and statistical modelling. Her PhD research focused on flow restoration in urban streams, leveraging a long-term catchment-scale experiment in Melbourne. Before her PhD, she co-invented a stormwater infiltration filter in Poland and a rainwater harvesting tank in China. Her research also covered groundwater overexploitation assessment, water quality analysis, and water security regulation. She has recently expanded into AI applications, geotechnical engineering, and flood mapping, fostering interdisciplinary collaborations.Li's work has been recognized through the 2022 Talent Program Startup Funding (100k AUD), the 2015 German Chancellor Fellowship Finalist, and the 2013 Green Talent Award. She has also played an important role in seven research projects (~14M AUD) funded by ARC, China, Germany, and the EU, actively contributing to research execution, data analysis, and scientific investigations tackling critical hydrological and environmental challenges.