Dr. Zhang is an assistant professor of the Department of Geography and an affiliate faculty of Electrical and Computing Engineering at Texas A&M University. She currently serves as a director of the Cyberinfrastructure and Spatial Decision Intelligence research group at Texas A&M University and a council member of the Gulf of Mexico Coastal Ocean Observing System. She is the past chair of the Cyberinfrastructure Specialty group at the American Association of Geographers. She also leads the CyberGIS and Decision Support Systems research initiative at the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science.

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Her research and teaching interests broadly include geographical information science and systems (GIS), cyberinfrastructure and cyberGIS, geospatial artificial intelligence, and human-centered decision-making. Her research focuses on advancing cyberinfrastructure and geospatial data science to provide data-intensive solutions to complex human-environment interaction problems, sustainability, and disaster resilience challenges.

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She has received research funding from several U.S. federal and state agencies such as NSF, NOAA, NASA, US DOT, National Geographic Society, and Texas Department of State Health Services, and served as principal, co-principal, and co-investigator for over $18 million in research grants. She has published peer-reviewed articles in several leading GIS-related journals, such as the International Journal of Geographic Information Science, Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Transactions in GIS, and the International Journal of Digital Earth. She has served as a guest editor of Transactions in GIS and an associate editor of Computational Urban Science.

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In recognition of her impactful research outcomes and outstanding education and outreach records, Dr. Zhang received a National Science Foundation CAREER award in 2023!