Dr. Zhang is Professor and T2 Canadian Research Chair in Coastal Environmental Engineering. She is the founder of Memorial’s Coastal Environmental Laboratory, which is among a select group of worldwide facilities developing novel and environmentally friendly bio-products for marine oil spill response. She is also a key researcher with Memorial’s Northern Region Persistent Organic Pollution Control Laboratory tackling the occurrence, transport, fate, impact, and mitigation of emerging coastal contaminants such as microplastics and antibiotics. Dr. Zhang’s cutting-edge work helps integrate coastal environmental engineering with the key ocean industrial sectors to drive our ocean economies more sustainable and productive under a changing climate.Dr. Zhang has served on prestigious boards and committees such as Senior Expert of the United Nations Development Programme, Atlantic Region Director of the Canadian Association on Water Quality, and Chair of the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CSCE) NL Section. She is the associate editor of the Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering, editor of the Journal of Hazardous Materials, and guest editor for multiple journals. She is a Member and Section Chair of the NSERC Discovery Grants Evaluation Group for Civil, Industrial, and Systems Engineering. Dr. Zhang is a Fellow of CSCE and a Member of the Royal Society of Canada's College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists.