EDUCATION
• Postdoctoral ORISE Fellow. U.S. Department of Agriculture; Environmental Microbial and Food Safety, 2016
• Ph.D. University of Maryland; Food Science & Human Nutrition, 2012
• B.S. Tsinghua University; Chemistry, 2008

Dr. Zhang’s research interests focus on food safety and food microbiology. His research integrates microbial omics, machine learning, nanotechnology, and biointerface science to study the mechanisms of pathogen persistence.

This research will also help to develop new surveillance platforms and intervention strategies to mitigate microbial food safety risks in our food system. His current research projects include:
• Nondestructive pathogen surveillance using artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled sensor array
• Nanopore transcriptome sequencing as pathogen surveillance and microbial transcriptomics
• Biointerface science and mechanism-based intervention of pathogen biofouling and biofilm