Jing Li has received numerous awards and honors for her academic achievements, including:
* Henry Rutgers Research Fellow, Rutgers University, 1991–1993
* Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar, The Camille & Henry Dreyfus Foundation, 1994–1998
* Presidential Faculty Fellow, The National Science Foundation, 1995–2000
* NSF CAREER Award, The National Science Foundation, 1995
* The Board of Trustees Fellowship for Scholarly Excellence, Rutgers University, 1996
* Outstanding Achievement Award, Chinese Association of Science and Technology, US, 2002
* The U.S. Clean Energy Education and Empowerment (C3E) Award, The Department of Energy, 2012
* Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 2012
* The Humboldt Research Award (Humboldt Prize), Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, 2013
* Board of Trustees Award for Excellence in Research, Rutgers University, 2013
* Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, The Royal Society of Chemistry, 2015