He was selected and nominated as a member of the national youth project “Thousand Talents Program” and the “Young Talents Lifting Project” of China Association for Science and Technology. His main research area is system and software security, focusing on vulnerability research, exploitation and defense, Dr. Zhang has published a number of research papers on many well-known academic journals, including one that is of the 10 most-cited scientific papers by BIG in 2013. His research results also won Microsoft BlueHat special nomination award. Under his leadership, his team participated in the DARPA Cyber Grand Challenge and was the winner of preliminary defense game and runner-up of the attack game. As a former player of Blue Lotus, he and the team used to win the second prize in the Defcon CTF in 2016.