Chen Li is one of a small group of psychologists in China who trained abroad early in their careers, returned to teach and do research, and continued doing so into later life beyond normal retirement age. His contacts with a number of prominent psychologists in England and Germany in the 1930s, and his inadvertent position at the center of a political row in China in the 1960s, leading to the shutting down of psychology for 10 years, made him historically important. Known for his work in organizational psychology and education, he is a distinguished psychologist and educational leader. Although trained as an experimentalist, he now embraces a broader view of psychology but remains emphatic it should be applied to real-life problems.