Welcome to my website!

I grew up in the Los Angeles area and studied mechanical engineering (with a bit of urban planning) at MIT. Since graduating in 2019, I’ve been living, working, and appreciating life in the San Francisco Bay Area.

I’m currently a systems engineer at a startup called Butlr; prior to that, I was on the design staff at the environmental design and sustainability consultancy Atelier Ten. I’ve also had the pleasure and privilege of work experiences at Divergent 3D, Ford, Piaggio Fast Forward, and the MIT Media Lab.

My interests include engineering, design, tech (and criticism of tech), reading, photography, sustainability, cycling, and transportation.

The “X” in jamesxli.com is for Xiang, my Chinese first name. I always go by James, but unfortunately it turns out James Li is not a very unique name, and jamesli.com was already taken…

You can reach me via email at long-origami-0f@icloud.com.