Juan Li

Juan Li is a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University and a Professor at the Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. She is Director of the Center for Psychology of Aging at the institute.

She received her Ph.D. in psychology from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and conducted postdoctoral research in Europe and the United States before returning to Beijing. 

Her research focuses on aging, cognitive resilience, mental health, cross-cultural comparisons, and early detection and prevention of neurodegenerative disease such as Alzheimer’s disease, with a particular focus on non-pharmacological interventions and their underlying neural mechanisms. Integrating behavioral approaches with neuroimaging methods, her work seeks to identify shared brain mechanisms that support cognitive and emotional well-being in aging populations.

In addition, her research takes a translational perspective, developing and evaluating community-based interventions for older adults through large-scale cohort studies and randomized controlled trials. Her work aims to bridge scientific research and real-world practice, contributing to scalable models for promoting healthy aging. 

More recently, she has been exploring how artificial intelligence and large language models can be integrated with psychological science to develop accessible and scalable mental health interventions for older adults.

Her work has been supported by major national research programs in China, including the National Key R&D Program and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.