MPA in Development Practice, Columbia University. Yifan Li obtained her BSc in Environmental Science from Fudan University in 2017. Later she obtained an MPA-DP at SIPA, Columbia University.

Yifan dedicates herself to Municipal Solid Waste reduction. Academically, she studied food waste sorting behaviour change in Shanghai, and introduced her findings on a key motivator, the Xinku concept, through her undergraduate thesis. Professionally, she helped develop recycling programmes from scratch at 30+ universities and 350+ communities in 8 major Chinese cities as an outreach manager at social enterprise TerraCycle. The experience of volunteering at local schools in rural Tibet and Anhui, studying economics and sustainable development in Mexico, and raising funds for an Indian e-waste reduction startup, helped her understand waste and the environment in a broader context.