Yuguo Li is a Chair Professor of Building Environment. He previously served as Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Associate Dean (Research) of Engineering. He also holds the position of Chair Professor by Courtesy at the Faculty of Architecture and Honorary Professor at the School of Public Health. Additionally, he is the Director of The Edge, a multidisciplinary engineering research platform of Faculty of Engineering. Before joining HKU in 2000, he was a Principal Research Scientist at CSIRO Australia. He earned his BSc in refrigeration engineering from Shanghai Jiaotong University, pursued an MSc in HVAC at Tsinghua University, and received a Tech Lic degree (HVAC) and a PhD (fluid mechanics) from the Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden. In 2015, he was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Engineering from Aalborg University, Denmark.

With a background in fluid mechanics, his research focuses on the building environment. His recent work includes engineering studies of infection (contagio-physics) and urban climate design, with a recent emphasis on city sustainability engineering. His team is currently designing a dome city. His team has played a key role in redefining airborne transmission of infection and its engineering controls during the COVID-19 pandemic. His team research elucidated the role of airflow in the 2003 SARS outbreak and more than 30 COVID-19 outbreaks. He has published over 350 papers in engineering, environment, climate, and health journals, accumulating over 40,000 Google Scholar citations (h-index 94). He is a Highly Cited Researcher by Clarivate (2022-2024) and ranks No. 1 globally in transmission (mechanics) and No. 10 in environment (systems) according to ScholarGPS (2024). He contributed to the development of several major WHO COVID-19 guidelines, led and co-authored the 2009 WHO guidelines on natural ventilation, and co-chaired a WHO working group on airborne transmission from 2022 to 2024. His research has been funded by RGC, NSFC, WHO, Boeing, Microsoft, P&G, and other grants.

He currently serves as the founding Editor-in-Chief of Indoor Environments, the official journal of ISIAQ. He was previously Editor-in-Chief of Indoor Air and President of the Academy of Fellows of the International Society of Indoor Air Quality and Climate (ISIAQ). He also serves on the editorial boards of other journals and has delivered plenary, keynote, or invited talks at over 150 conferences on topics ranging from infection control engineering and building ventilation to city climate and environment. He is a member of the WHO Infection Prevention and Control Guidance Development Group and the WHO Environment and Engineering Control Expert Advisory Panel for COVID-19. He has been a visiting professor at Aalborg University, and the Technical University of Denmark (Otto Mønsted Visiting Professor), and is currently at Beijing University of Technology (2019–present).

Elected a Fellow of the Hong Kong Academy of Engineering, he currently serves as its Honorary Secretary. His accolades include the Pettenkofer Award (ISIAQ), the Guanghua Engineering Science and Technology Prize, the Donald Bahnfleth Environmental Health Award (ASHRAE), Honorable Member status from SHASE (The Society of Heating, Air-Conditioning and Sanitary Engineers of Japan) in 2022, the Inoue Memorial Award (SHASE) in 2016, the Medal of Honour (MH) from HKSAR, the Louise and Bill Holladay Distinguished Fellow Award (ASHRAE) in 2021, and the Rydberg Gold Medal (SCANVAC) in 2014. He is a Fellow of ASHRAE, ISIAQ, HKIE, and IMechE, and a Chartered Engineer (CEng) with the UK Engineering Council.