Dr. Zhang is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Atmospheric Sciences and a Faculty Fellow at the Gies Business School of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Before rejoining Illinois in 2023, he was a Weather Analyst and Quantitative Researcher at Citadel hedge fund during 2020-2023, and a postdoctoral Research Associate at Princeton University / Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory.

Dr. Zhang’s research interests revolve around climate modeling, prediction, and applications. He has conducted research on climate extremes and their socioeconomic impacts using weather & climate models, machine learning, and community datasets. Dr. Zhang received his B.S. degree from the Ocean University of China, M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.