Dixin Li is now a doctoral candidate. She earned her M.A. in Criminology and Criminal Justice from the University of Maryland in 2023. 

She currently works as a graduate assistant for Dr. Robert Stewart, primarily on a series of projects that aim at understanding the political participation of people who have criminal justice contacts. She additionally works with Dr. Brian Johnson, and she previously worked with Dr. Bianca Bersani and Rod Brunson. 

Her MA thesis, chaired by Dr. Brian Johnson, is a study of local sentencing patterns in response to racial protests. Specifically, she investigated the impacts of 2015 Freddie Gray's death and associated protests on Maryland Circuit Courts. 

Dixin currently serves as the Graduate Student Representative of the Criminology and Criminal Justice Department.