Charlie Li, PhD
Scientific Reviewer, Food Chemistry and Environmental Health
PhD in Food Chemistry, Oregon State University. Former Research Scientist IV, Food and Drug Laboratory Branch, California Department of Public Health.
Charlie Li is a food chemist with roughly three decades of experience in university and public health laboratories. At AltHealthWorks, he reviews articles that make claims about food contaminants, food additives, pesticide residues, dietary supplement quality, and chemical exposures, checking that the chemistry and toxicology are described accurately and that cited studies say what the article says they do.
Professional Background
Dr. Li spent the later part of his career at the Food and Drug Laboratory Branch of the California Department of Public Health in Richmond, California, a state reference laboratory that tests food and drugs for chemical and microbiological contaminants. As a Research Scientist IV in the branch’s Chemistry Research Unit, his work included developing liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry methods to identify undeclared prescription drugs in dietary supplements and to measure contaminants such as bisphenol A and mycotoxins in food. He has since retired from the department.
Before joining the state laboratory, he was an assistant and then associate professor at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University from 2001 to 2008, after completing postdoctoral research at the University of California, Davis, from 1994 to 1999. He later served as an adjunct professor at UC Davis from 2013 to 2022. He has also taught environmental health in the public health program at California State University, East Bay, and chemistry and biochemistry at San Francisco State University.
Education
- PhD, Food Chemistry, Oregon State University (1994)
- MS, Biochemistry, Oregon State University
- BS, Horticulture, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University
Areas of Review
Food contaminants and processing chemicals, such as acrylamide and mycotoxins; pesticide residues; food additives and labeling; dietary supplement purity and adulteration; and chemical exposures from consumer products.
Selected Publications
Dr. Li has authored or co-authored about 30 peer-reviewed publications from 1993 to 2025. Examples from his public health laboratory work include:
- Li C, Xu D, Moezzi B. Identification of erectile dysfunction drugs in dietary supplements by liquid chromatography ion trap mass spectrometry. Journal of Dietary Supplements. 2021;18(3):261–277. doi:10.1080/19390211.2020.1758274 (PubMed)
- Song W, Li C, Moezzi B. Simultaneous determination of bisphenol A, aflatoxin B1, ochratoxin A, and patulin in food matrices by liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry. Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry. 2013;27(6):671–680. doi:10.1002/rcm.6495 (PubMed)
Other Profiles
- Food and Drug Laboratory Branch organizational chart, California Department of Public Health (2018), listing Dr. Li as Research Scientist IV (Chemical Sciences), Chemistry Research Unit
- Editorial board profile, iMedPub
- Invited lecture, Henan University (2024)
How Reviews Work
Reviewers check articles in their area of expertise for scientific accuracy and send corrections to our editors, who revise the article before the reviewer’s name is added to it. Only articles a reviewer has actually reviewed list that reviewer. Reviewers are paid a flat fee per article and have no ownership stake in AltHealthWorks and no commission tied to any product.