Li Lin (Chinese: 李林; 31 October 1923 – 31 May 2003) was a Chinese physicist. She made important contributions to China's metallurgy, nuclear power, and high-temperature superconductivity programs, and was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1980. Her father Li Siguang and husband Chen-Lu Tsou were also prominent scientists and academicians.
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Early life and education
Li was born Li Xizhi (李熙芝) in Beijing on 31 October 1923, with her ancestral home in Huanggang, Hubei Province. Her father Li Siguang (J. S. Lee) was a renowned geologist and professor at Peking University, and her mother Xu Shubin (许淑彬) was a pianist and schoolteacher. Her father was of Mongol descent, whose grandfather was a Mongolian beggar who migrated to Hubei in search of a better livelihood. Her family originally had the Mongol surname "Kuli" (库里) or "Ku" (库).
From 1934 to 1936, she lived in England where her father was teaching. After the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, her family sought refuge in Shanghai and then in Guilin, Guangxi, which was free from Japanese occupation.
In Guilin, she changed her name to Li Lin and attended Guangxi University, graduating in 1944 with a degree in mechanics. She worked at the Aviation Institute in Chengdu, and with the help of Joseph Needham, won a British Cultural Council scholarship to study at the University of Birmingham in 1946. After earning her master's degree in 1948, she continued her studies at the Department of Metallurgy at the University of Cambridge, where she met and married fellow Chinese scientist Chen-Lu Tsou. She became also known as Anna Tsou.