He was a 2016-2017 Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellows in Contemporary Asia at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. He is a political scientist whose research interests include political economy of development, with focus on the economic and political consequences of elite politics, and on the historical origins of long-run economic development. His dissertation examines the political logic of sustaining state capitalism model in the developing world with a primary focus on China. He received his doctorate in political science from Northwestern University in June 2016. Zhang holds bachelor’s degrees in public policy and economics, and a master’s degree in public policy from Peking University, Beijing.