Dr. Zhang joined the faculty at Wright State University as an assistant professor in September 2003. He received his B.S. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering in Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China in 1994 and 1998 respectively. He then obtained his Ph.D. in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering Program at the University of Texas at Austin in August, 2003.

Dr. Zhang's research interests are in the area of mathematical programming, especially linear, integer and combinatorial optimization and their applications in manufacturing, logistics, service management, and engineering design. He has wide experience in solving practical large scale optimization problems and is the primary investigator or key developer in several multi-million projects such as the airline crew scheduling and recovery problem, the advertisement allocation project for television networks and the management of personnel and equipment in USPS.

Besides these works, Dr. Zhang is also interested in the design and optimization of VLSI systems and that of wireless networks. Like all good OR people, he is a member of the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS).