Xiang Li is a graduate student in the Penn State Chemistry department with expertise in carbon nanomaterials synthesis and characterization. She is interested in new precursor strategies for kinetically controlled syntheses of carbon nanothreads. Xiang often travels to beamlines at major national and international neutron and x-ray facilities to probe the structural and vibrational properties of nanothreads. Another focus is nanothread characterization using laboratory based techniques such as x-ray diffraction and Raman and infrared vibrational spectroscopies.