Yan Li

Dr. Yan Li received her B.S. degree in Modern Physics from the University of Science and Technology of China. She received an M.S. and Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, USA. In 1998, she joined SanDisk Corporation, Sunnyvale, CA, working on Flash Memory Technology. She led teams that designed many generations of NAND flash memory, including the industry’s first 3 bits per cell NAND memory, and brought them into mass production. She has won the Lewis Winner Award for best paper at International Solid State Circuit Conferences (ISSCC) in 2008 and 2012 respectively. She was active in serving as Technical Paper reviewer and session chairs in Memory and ML/AI Committee. Starting this year, she started serving as Technical Paper reviewer in VLSI Symposium in Circuit Design committee. She is currently a Vice President for memory technology, leading the advanced 3D NAND process, as well as other non-volatile memories and new innovation initiatives. She has created many innovative ideas to improve NAND products, and holds more than 200 patents. She won the Super Woman of Flash award in 2022 Flash Memory Summit. Currently she is serving as a mentor in GSA woman leadership initiative in 2023 to help women to grow and climb their career ladders.