Ching Chun Li was born on October 27, 1912, in Tianjin, China. He received his B.S. degree in agronomy from the University of Nanjing, China, in 1936 and a Ph.D. in plant breeding and genetics from Cornell University in 1940. He did postgraduate work in mathematics, mathematical statistics and experimental statistics at the University of Chicago, Columbia University and North Carolina State College, 1940-1941. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association (elected 1969), an elected member of the International Statistical Institute, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and an elected member of Academia Sinica (Chinese Academy). He served as President of the American Society of Human Genetics in 1960. His tenure at the University of Pittsburgh began in 1951. He was Professor and Department Chairman, Biostatistics, from 1969 to 1975, and he was promoted to University Professor in 1975. Although he retired in 1983, he has remained active in research.