[2] After graduating from Tsinghua University in August 1924, he went to study at California Institute of Technology, in the United States.
Zhang received his master's degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in January 1928.
[1] Zhang returned to China in 1931 and one year later became a professor at the Chemical Engineering Department of Nankai University.
In September 1941, he was recruited by the Kuomintang government to succeed Ye Yuanlong as President of Chongqing University, a position in which he remained until November 1949.
After the founding of the Communist State, he was a professor at Sichuan University of Science and Engineering (1952) and Chengdu Institute of Technology (1956), respectively.