With generous support from C.C. Li’s two children, Carol S. Li and Steven M. Li, and his wife, Clara, established the C.C. and Clara Li Endowed Scholarship in summer 2015.
Devoted to advancing the recruitment of top master's and doctoral applicants to the Department of Human Genetics, the endowment can be used to support tuition, travel, or other educational expenses for students studying at any level in the department. C. C. and Clara Li Scholar Awards are offered to an incoming student from each of the department’s programs. Awards may also be usedto help promising current students attend a scientific meeting to present their research.
The award honors the legacy of C.C. Li, who served as chair of the Department of Biostatistics and was a biostatistics and human genetics faculty memberat Pitt Public Health for more than 45 years. A recipient of the American Society of Human Genetics Award for Excellence in Human Genetics Education, Li authored several textbooks—including First Course in Population Genetics—that are considered to be classics in the field and have been translated into several languages.
The Li family’s generous support of Pitt Public Health dates back many years and also includes a $1 million planned gift commitment to create a research fund for the Department of Human Genetics. The inaugural C.C. and Clara Li scholars were awarded in 2017, and formally announced at the 2018 C.C. Li Memorial Lecture.
About
Ching Chun "C.C." Li was born in Tianjin, China, in 1912. He received his bachelor’s degree in agronomy from the University of Nanking before coming to the United States for a doctorate in plant breeding and genetics at Cornell University. He returned to China and, in 1946, joined National Beijing University where he later served as chair of the agronomy department and wrote his first book, Population Genetics, at age 34. With the introduction of the Communist government to China in 1949, Li and his family fled to Hong Kong. American colleagues recommended the geneticist to Thomas Parran, former U.S. surgeon general and first dean of the newly created University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health. Li joined GSPH’s faculty in 1951, served as chair of the biostatistics department from 1969 to 1975, and officially retired in 1982 (though he would publish another 25 papers and continue to come to his Pitt Public Health office every day until a few months before his death). Li's textbooks, including First Course in Population Genetics, are considered classics in the field and have been translated into several languages. A fellow of the American Statistical Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, he also served as president of the American Society of Human Genetics and was a member of the International Statistical Institute. In 1998 the American Society of Human Genetics presented him with its Award for Excellence in Human Genetics Education. Li died on October 20, 2003, just seven days shy of his 91st birthday.
Photos of C.C Li from October 2002
Info on the C.C. Li Memorial Lecture
A Memory of C.C. by Dan Weeks
I first met C.C. Li when I was a graduate student at UCLA and C.C. teaching a course in population genetics as a visiting scholar. While his class was very good and I learned a lot, I had no idea that later I would be fortunate enough to come to Pittsburgh to his department.
Shortly after my arrival in Pittsburgh in the early 1990s, I had the pleasure of working with C.C. on a paper dealing with the probability of a random match between the two DNA profiles of a pair of individuals. The mathematics was challenging, and it was difficult to visualize exactly what was going on in our multidimensional model. Then, one morning, C.C. came into my office with an elegant three-dimensional paper model that he had made that provided great insight into the properties of our model. I kept this wonderful paper model on top of my computer monitor for many years as a gentle reminder that the best mathematical modeling often results from sharp intellectual insight, rather than from extensive computer-based simulations.
Articles About C.C. Li
- Spiess EB (1983) Ching Chun Li, courageous scholar of population genetics, human genetics, and biostatistics: a living history essay. Am J Med Genet 16:603-30. Link
- Chakravarti A (1999) 1998 ASHG Award for Excellence in Education. Professor Ching Chun Li, courageous scholar and educator. Am J Hum Genet 64:14-5. Link
- Majumder PP (2004a) C. C. Li (1912-2003): his science and his spirit. J Genet 83:101-5. Link
- Majumder PP (2004b) C.C. Li (1912-2003): his science and his spirit. Genet Epidemiol 26:81-7. Link
- Spiess EB (2005) Remembrance of Ching Chun Li, 1912-2003. Genetics 169:9-11. Link
C.C. Li's Bibliography
Here are all of C.C. Li's references which were in the online databases; the majority of these have a hyperlink to an online abstract or citation. For a complete listing of C.C. Li's references, please see his C.V.
Li CC (1948) An introduction to population genetics. National Peking University Press, Peiping
Glass B, Li CC (1953) The dynamics of racial intermixture; an analysis based on the American Negro. Am J Hum Genet 5:1-20. Link
Li CC (1953a) On an equation specifying equilibrium populations. Science 117:378-9. Link
Li CC (1953b) Some general properties of recessive inheritance. Am J Hum Genet 5:269-79. Link
Li CC, Horvitz DG (1953) Some methods of estimating the inbreeding coefficient. Am J Hum Genet 5:107-17. Link
Li CC (1954a) The correlation between parents and offspring in a random mating population. Am J Hum Genet 6:383-6. Link
Li CC (1954b) Linkage versus association. Methods Med Res 6:33-8. Link
Li CC (1954c) Methods for establishing the genetic role. Methods Med Res 6:24-32. Link
Li CC (1954d) Segregation of recessive offspring. Methods Med Res 6:3-16. Link
Li CC (1954e) The severity of an abnormality. Methods Med Res 6:17-23. Link
Li CC (1955) Population genetics. University of Chicago Press, [Chicago].
Li CC (1956a) The components of sampling variance of ABO gene frequency estimates. Am J Hum Genet 8:133-7. Link
Li CC (1956b) The concept of path coefficient and its impact on population genetics. Biometrics 12:190--210.
Li CC (1959) Numbers from experiments; a basic analysis of variation. Boxwood Press, Pittsburgh.
Degroot MH, Li CC (1960) Simplified method of estimating the MNS gene frequencies. Ann Hum Genet 24:109-15. Link
Li CC (1960) A diagrammatic representation of the proportions of genotypes and phenotypes in a panmictic population. Ann Hum Genet 24:117-9. Link
Li CC (1961a) The diminishing jaw of civilized people. Am J Hum Genet 13:1-8. Link
Li CC (1961b) Genetic methods for epidemiological investigations: a synthesis. Ann N Y Acad Sci 91:806-12. Link
Li CC (1961c) Human genetics; principles and methods. Blakiston Division, New York.
Boyd WC, Li CC (1963) Rates of Selective Action on Unifactorial and Multifactorial Traits. Am J Phys Anthropol 21:521-6. Link
Li CC (1963a) 3. The way the load ratio works. Am J Hum Genet 15:316-21. Link
Li CC (1963b) Decrease of population fitness upon inbreeding. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 49:439-45. Link
Li CC (1963c) Genetic aspects of consanguinity. Am J Med 34:702-14. Link
Li CC (1964a) Estimate of Recessive Proportion by First Appearance Time. Ann Hum Genet 28:177-80. Link
Li CC (1964b) Introduction to experimental statistics. McGraw-Hill, New York.
DeGroot MH, Li CC (1966) Correlations between similar sets of measurements. Biometrics 22:781--790.
Li CC (1967a) Castle's early work on selection and equilibrium. Am J Hum Genet 19:70-4. Link
Li CC (1967b) Fundamental theorem of natural selection. Nature 214:505-6. Link
Li CC (1967c) Genetic equilibrium under selection. Biometrics 23:397-484. Link
Li CC (1967d) The maximization of average fitness by natural selection for a sex-linked locus. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 57:1260-1. Link
Li CC (1968) Fisher, Wright, and path coefficients. Biometrics 24:471-83. Link
Li CC, Mantel N (1968) A simple method of estimating the segregation ratio under complete ascertainment. Am J Hum Genet 20:61-81. Link
Rao BR, Garg ML, Li CC (1968) Correlation between the sample variances in a singly truncated bivariate normal distribution. Biometrika 55:433-436.
Falk CT, Li CC (1969) Negative assortative mating: exact solution to simple model. Genetics 62:215-23. Link
Li CC (1969a) Increment of average fitness for multiple alleles. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 62:395-8. Link
Li CC (1969b) Population subdivision with respect to multiple alleles. Ann Hum Genet 33:23-9. Link
Li CC (1970) Table of variance of ABO gene frequency estimates. Ann Hum Genet 34:189-94. Link
Li CC (1971) Unsymmetric equilibria under two-locus symmetric selection model. J Hered 62:47-8. Link
Raja Rao B, Mazumdar S, Li CC (1973) A note on a conditional distribution involving a Yule process. Statist. Hefte (N.F.) 14:277--281.
Rao BR, Mazumdar S, Waller JH, Li CC (1973) Correlation between the numbers of two types of children in a family. Biometrics 29:271-9. Link
Waller JH, Rao BR, Li CC (1973) Heterogeneity of childless families. Soc Biol 20:133-8. Link
Mantel N, Li CC (1974) Estimation and testing of a measure of non-random mating. Ann Hum Genet 37:445-54. Link
Waller J, Rao BR, Li CC (1974) Letter: Reply to Mitra's observations on 'Heterogeneity of childless families'. Soc Biol 21:309-10. Link
Mantel N, Li CC (1974/75) Errata: ``Estimation and testing of a measure of non-random mating''\ (Ann. Human Genetics {\bf 37} (1973/74), 445--454). Ann. Human Genetics 38:382.
Li CC (1975a) [General concepts of quantitative genetics applied to human populations]. Orthod Fr 46:55-69. Link
Li CC (1975b) Path analysis: a primer. Boxwood Press, Pacific Grove, Calif.
Li CC (1975c) Path coefficients and derivatives. Biometrical Journal. Journal of Mathematical Methods in Biosciences. [Continues: Biometrische Zeitschrift. Zeitschrift für mathematische Methoden in den Biowissenschaften] 17:213-216.
Li CC, Mazumdar S, Rao BR (1975) Partial correlation in terms of path coefficients. The American Statistician 29:89-90.
Li CC (1976a) First course in population genetics. Boxwood Press, Pacific Grove, Calif.
Li CC (1976b) The testing of dominants for heterozygoisty. Ann Hum Genet 40:183-90. Link
Li CC, Mazumdar S (1976) Analysis of dichotomized factorial data. Journal of Chronic Diseases 29:355-370.
Wald N, Fatora SR, Herron JM, Preston K, Jr., Li CC, Davis L (1976) Status report on automated chromosome aberration detection. J Histochem Cytochem 24:156-9. Link
Li CC (1977) Separation of common environment and dominance effects with classic kinship correlation models. Soc Biol 24:259-66. Link
Li CC (1978) On measuring genetic distance by selection intensity. Ann Hum Genet 41:501-4. Link
Li CC, Mazumdar S (1981) A type of orthogonal contrasts for unbalanced data. Biometrical J. 23:645--651.
Li CC (1982) Analysis of unbalanced data: a pre-program introduction. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge; New York.
Rao BR, Li CC (1982) The geometry of path coefficients and correlations. Biometrical Journal. Journal of Mathematical Methods in Biosciences. [Continues: Biometrische Zeitschrift. Zeitschrift fur mathematische Methoden in den Biowissenschaften] 24:673-678.
Chakravarti A, Li CC (1983) The probability of exclusion based on the HLA locus. Am J Hum Genet 35:1048-52. Link
Chakravarti A, Li CC (1984) Estimating the prior probability of paternity from the results of exclusion tests. Forensic Sci Int 24:143-7. Link
Chakravarti A, Li CC, Buetow KH (1984) Estimation of the marker gene frequency and linkage disequilibrium from conditional marker data. Am J Hum Genet 36:177-86. Link
Li CC (1984) Some methodological developments in genetic epidemiology. Prog Clin Biol Res 147:159-72. Link
Li CC, Chakravarti A (1985) Basic fallacies in the formulation of the paternity index. Am J Hum Genet 37:809-18. Link
Li CC (1986a) Effect of father's education on child's cognitive ability. Soc Biol 33:316-21. Link
Li CC (1986b) Inbreeding and the balance between selection and mutation. Prog Clin Biol Res 218:31-44. Link
Li CC (1986c) A method of subdividing genetic data into self-contained subsets. Ann Hum Genet 50 (Pt 3):259-70. Link
Chakravarti A, Badner JA, Li CC (1987) Tests of linkage and heterogeneity in Mendelian diseases using identity by descent scores. Genet Epidemiol 4:255-66. Link
Li CC (1987) A genetical model for emergenesis: in memory of Laurence H. Snyder, 1901-86. Am J Hum Genet 41:517-23. Link
Li CC, Chakravarti A, Halloran SL (1987) Estimation of segregation and ascertainment probabilities by discarding the single probands. Genet Epidemiol 4:185-91. Link
Li CC (1988a) Pseudo-random mating populations. In celebration of the 80th anniversary of the Hardy-Weinberg law. Genetics 119:731-7. Link
Li CC (1988b) Steinberg's new paternity probability. Am J Hum Genet 42:390-1. Link
Li CC, Chakravarti A (1988) An expository review of two methods of calculating the paternity probability. Am J Hum Genet 43:197-205. Link
Majumder PP, Das SK, Li CC (1988) A genetical model for vitiligo. Am J Hum Genet 43:119-25. Link
Li CC (1991a) Genetics of subdivided populations and its relationships with certain measures of association. Genet Epidemiol 8:1-11. Link
Li CC (1991b) Method of path coefficients: a trademark of Sewall Wright. Hum Biol 63:1-17. Link
Li CC, Weeks DE, Chakravarti A (1993) Similarity of DNA fingerprints due to chance and relatedness. Hum Hered 43:45-52. Link
Li CC, Chakravarti A (1994) DNA profile similarity in a subdivided population. Hum Hered 44:100-9. Link
Weeks DE, Young A, Li CC (1995) DNA profile match probabilities in a subdivided population: when can subdivision be ignored? Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 92:12031-5. Link
Li CC (1996) Population genetics of coincidental DNA matches. Hum Biol 68:167-84. Link
Guo SW, Zheng CJ, Li CC (1997) 'Gene war of the century'? Science 278:1693-4. Link
Chen TT, Tai JJ (1998) A conversation with C. C. Li. Statist. Sci. 13:378--387.
Guo SW, Zheng CJ, Li CC (1998) Dilemma over genetics and population in China. Nature 394:313-4. Link
Li CC, Chiu CH, Wu JL, Huang YC, Lin TY (1998) Antimicrobial susceptibilities of Campylobacter jejuni and coli by using E-test in Taiwan. Scand J Infect Dis 30:39-42. Link
Li CC (1999) 1998 ASHG Award for Excellence in Education. Remarks on receiving the ASHG award: science and science education. Am J Hum Genet 64:16-7. Link
Li CC (2000) Progressing from eugenics to human genetics. Celebrating the 70th birthday of professor Newton E. Morton. Hum Hered 50:22-33. Link