Zhong-Xin Li was born in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, China. He received the B.S. degree in power system automation and the M.S. degree in high voltage engineering from Xi'an Jiaotong University, China, in 1989 and 1994, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 1999.

After receiving his Ph.D. degree in the same year, he went to Fudan University for postdoctoral research, and stayed there after his postdoctoral release. After leaving Fudan University in 2003, he worked in the Electromagnetic Environment Laboratory of the High Voltage Research Institute of China Electric Power Research Institute, and then worked as a visiting scholar at City University of Hong Kong in 2004, and then worked in the The Electromagnetics Academy of Zhejiang University in 2005. In 2007, he returned to the Lightning Arrester Technology Research Laboratory of the Institute of High Voltage Research, China Electric Power Research Institute, where he has worked until now.

So far, he has published nearly 60 papers in international journals. Among them, 52 papers are indexed by SCI and 57 papers are indexed by EI. His research interests include the application of computational electromagnetics to the analysis of grounding systems.