Professor Zhang is currently the head of the Artificial Intelligence and Modelling in Epidemiology Program, at Central Clinical School, Monash University, Australia.

He completed his Bachelor and Masters in Mathematics at the University of Sydney in 2002. He then pursued his PhD in Medicine at the University of New South Wales in HIV pathology. In 2006, He accepted a postdoctoral position offer at Humboldt University, Berlin and researched topics of bioinformatics. He completed a Master of Public Health in 2009. During 2009-2015, he served as a Lecturer and Senior Lecturer at Kirby Institute, UNSW. He was appointed Associate Professor at Central Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine Monash University in 2015 and subsequently Professor in the same institute in 2022.

Prof Zhang is a very experienced modeller and epidemiologist in HIV/STI research. He has cross-disciplinary research experience in mathematics, epidemiology, artificial intelligence, and cost-effectiveness evaluation. He also has a strong background in statistical analysis and computational research. He conducts high-quality HIV/STI research. So far, he has published 266 publications (251 papers, 6 book chapters, 9 technical reports), 181 of which are first/senior authored. He regularly publishes in leading journals (Lancet HIV, Lancet GH, Lancet RH, Lancet ID, Genetics in Medicine, Journal of Infection, International Journal of Epidemiology, PNAS, CID, AIDS and JAIDS). He has led or contributed to six international projects with UNAIDS, the World Bank and the WHO. These findings have been translated into health policies that foster effective HIV interventions in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia. He has developed and demonstrated his leadership in these projects. His papers have been cited more than 7000 times (>4700 cites in the past five years). He has also given more than 40 oral and post-conference presentations at several national and international conferences. He established the China-Australia Joint Research Center for Infectious Diseases which facilitated a strong collaboration in education and research between Monash University and Xi’an Jiaotong University, China. He has supervised 6 PhD and 15 master students to completion. Currently, he is (co-)supervising 11 PhD and 13 master students. Throughout his career, he has established a strong collaboration with ministries of health from multiple countries in the Western Pacific and international organisations (WHO, UNAIDS, and the World Bank). He also served as a long-time consultant and technical advisor to the WHO Western Pacific Region.