Dr. Zhang got his doctoral degree on Epidemiology and Statistics in 2004. He has 6 years of teaching and 16 years of experience in disease control and prevention with the focus on non-communicable chronic disease (NCD).
After joining TGI, he has been responsible for 11 projects, as PI or Co-PI, with total grant of AU$26M ($25M covering the past 3 years). Of the 11 grants, 7 are peer-reviewed funding with a total amount of AU$12.8M. Diabetes, nutrition and mHealth innovation are the major research areas. Over 2-3 years of incubation, 14 SCI papers have been published in the past 3 years and dozens of abstracts have been presented in various scientific conferences.
After years of work for and in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, China CDC, Beijing Health Bureau and other government agencies, a good relationship with the key stakeholders has been established. The success of the NIHR grant is an example in which all the relevant government agencies related to salt reduction have been included in the project.