Chunli Bai is Executive Vice-president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Director of Division of Chemistry and member of Executive Committee of the Presidium. He graduated from the Department of Chemistry, Peking University in 1978 and received his MS and Ph.D. degrees from CAS Institute of Chemistry in 1981 and 1985, respectively. During 1985-1987, he was at Caltech, the US for advanced study, conducting research work in the field of physical chemistry as a post-doctorate associate and visiting scholar. After his return home in 1987, he continued his research at CAS Institute of Chemistry. From Oct. 1991 to Apr. 1992, he was a visiting professor at Tohoku University in Japan.
His research areas involve the structure and properties of polymer catalysts, X-ray crystallography of organic compounds, molecular mechanics and EXAFS research on electro-conducting polymers. In the mid-1980s, he shifted his research orientation to the field of scanning tunneling microscopy, and molecular nanotechnology.