Dr. Hao Zhang is currently a Professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering at the University of Alberta. Before joining the University of Alberta, Dr. Zhang was a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University. He received B.E. and M.S. degrees in Materials Science and Engineering from Tsinghua University and PhD degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University. 

The general area of research of Dr. Zhang is computational and theoretical materials science. Specifically, he is interested in the static and dynamic properties of defects, and the effects of defects on the physical properties of materials. In particular, Dr. Zhang focuses on examining structure stability of nanoparticles, exploring the fundamental mechanisms behind the plastic deformation of nanocrystalline materials and metallic glasses, investigating mechanical response in nanostructured materials, understanding interfacial dynamics in nanoparticle, studying hydrogen embrittlement in pipeline steel, and designing high capacity solid sorbent for CO2 capture. He has authored and coauthored more than 80 publications in the areas of computational materials science with papers appearing in venues such as PNAS, Journal of Physical Chemistry, Soft Matter, Journal of Chemical Physics, Physical Review B, Acta Materialia, etc.