Associate Professor Zhang is the Research Theme Champion on Environment and Sustainability of Western Sydney University and the Academic Course Advisor for Civil and Construction Engineering in School of Computing, Engineering and Mathematics. She received her PhD from the University of Hong Kong in 2001.
Dr. Zhang’s research interest has been on advanced materials and novel application of advanced materials in civil and mechanical/aeronautical structures. In civil engineering, she works on green construction materials by using industrial by-products and high-performance fibre reinforced cementitious composite aiming to achieve durable, resilient and sustainable infrastructures. In mechanical/aeronautical engineering, she focuses on studies on composite materials and structures aiming to enhance the structural integrity and performance. She has a strong expertise on numerical modelling and analysis and in addition to using the experimental technique she also uses advanced numerical modelling to calibrate the mechanical behaviour of materials and model the structural behaviour including under extreme loading conditions such as impact/blast/fatigue/fire loadings. Since 1998, she has published over 220 peer-reviewed scholarly research papers including more than 70 research papers in top international journals in her research areas. She was awarded research grant of over $2.5 millions from various schemes including Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project.