# Bo Li

> Bo Li is a computer scientist and Virtue AI co-founder whose work examines how machine-learning systems fail under manipulation and how to make them more trustworthy. An Abbasi Associate Professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, she co-authored physical adversarial-attack research and DecodingTrust, which received recognition from NeurIPS and the NSA. After serving as Virtue AI CEO, she left the company in June 2026 and joined Meta Superintelligence Labs with other founders and team members.

- **Role:** AI security researcher at Meta Superintelligence Labs; Abbasi Associate Professor at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
- **Organizations:** Meta Superintelligence Labs, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Virtue AI (co-founder and former CEO), Secure Learning Lab, University of California, Berkeley (former postdoctoral researcher), Vanderbilt University, University of Chicago (listed research affiliation), Center for Artificial Intelligence Innovation, Information Trust Institute, Actava.ai (advisor)
- **Education:** Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Tongji University, Ph.D. in Computer Science, Vanderbilt University
- **Known for:** MIT Technology Review Innovators Under 35, global list (2020), NSF CAREER Award (listed as 2020 in Illinois faculty directory), Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship in Computer Science (2022)

## Career timeline

- **2011** — Earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science at Tongji University in Shanghai.
- **2015** — Received a Symantec Research Labs Graduate Fellowship while a Vanderbilt doctoral student.
- **2016** — Completed a computer science Ph.D. at Vanderbilt University.
- **2017-2018** — Worked as a UC Berkeley postdoctoral researcher with Dawn Song.
- **2017** — Co-authored research on robust physical-world adversarial attacks, including sticker attacks on road-sign classifiers.
- **2018** — Joined the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty.
- **2020** — Named to MIT Technology Review’s global Innovators Under 35 list.
- **2022** — Received the IJCAI Computers and Thought Award and a Sloan Research Fellowship.
- **2023** — Co-authored DecodingTrust, recognized with a NeurIPS Outstanding Paper Award.
- **2024** — Co-founded Virtue AI; DecodingTrust received the NSA Best Scientific Cybersecurity Paper Award.
- **2025** — Virtue AI announced $30 million in combined seed and Series A funding.
- **2026** — Won the SC Award for Innovator of the Year; departed Virtue AI in June and joined Meta Superintelligence Labs.

## Achievements

- MIT Technology Review Innovators Under 35, global list (2020)
- NSF CAREER Award (listed as 2020 in Illinois faculty directory)
- Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship in Computer Science (2022)
- IJCAI Computers and Thought Award (2022)
- Co-author of DecodingTrust, NeurIPS Outstanding Paper Award (2023)
- Co-author of DecodingTrust, NSA Best Scientific Cybersecurity Paper Award (2024)
- SC Award: Innovator (Executive or Practitioner) of the Year (2026)

## Latest updates

- **2026-09** — Illinois published confirmation that Li and Virtue AI founders and team members had joined Meta Superintelligence Labs to work on AI agent security.
- **2026-08** — Actava.ai announced Li as Chief AI Safety and Alignment Advisor.
- **2026-06** — Virtue AI announced Li’s departure and appointed Sohaib Shaikh CEO on June 29.
- **2026-03** — Li received the SC Award for Innovator of the Year.
- **2026-03** — Published interview discussed agent security, runtime action enforcement, and translating research into production defenses.

## Links

- Website: https://aisecure.github.io/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lxbosky/
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/uiuc_aisecure
- GitHub: https://github.com/crystalboli

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/bo-li
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-10-11