Zhang completed a Ph.D. in Michael Rossmann’s lab at Purdue University in the field of biochemistry and structural virology.

Her Ph.D. project was resolving the structures of poliovirus-receptor complexes using X-ray crystallography and cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM).

[2] She joined the Structural Biophysics Laboratory at National Cancer Institute (NCI) as a NIH Stadtman Tenure Track Investigator in August 2016.

[1][3] She researches the structural and mechanistic basis of multi-component kinase signaling complexes that are linked to human cancers and other diseases, with a long-term goal of developing new therapeutic strategies.

Zhang's lab applies integrated structural biology (single-particle cryo-electron microscopy and X-ray crystallography) and biochemical approaches to achieve our objective of studying these kinase complexes in their functional states.