Dr. Zhang obtained her Ph.D. (funded by China Scholarship Council) in Inclusive Design and Creative Technology Innovation from University College Dublin in Ireland, with the thesis title: The Design, Building, Testing, and Evaluation of a Bespoke Virtual Cloud Campus Platform for Irish-Chinese Collaboration Incorporating Cross-cultural Collaborative Games.

Dr. Zhang was an assistant research professor at East China Normal University before joining XJTLU. Her role involved teaching classes on AI in Education, focusing on Cutting-edge Research in Modern Educational Technology. During this time, she also collaborated with industry giants like Tencent and iFlytek, leading projects on AI in education. Dr. Zhang has published over ten high-quality papers as the first and corresponding author, including SSCI, SCI, CSSCI, and ISTP journals. As an independent PI, she is currently leading a significant project of the 2021 China National Youth Project of Education Sciences: the intervention study of a markerless augmented reality cognitive training game on working memory in children with autism in China. She has also successfully completed the projects of 2021 Youth Project of Educational Sciences in the Shanghai Philosophy and Social Sciences Planning and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation. Therefore, Dr. Zhang has extensive experience leading interdisciplinary research in social and natural sciences and excels in designing experimental studies using diverse research methods.

As for entrepreneurial practice, Dr. Zhang co-founded two companies and is currently a consultant for some domestic start-ups. Dr. Zhang's rich experiences conducting innovation and entrepreneurship-related projects and practices testify to her expertise. For instance, Dr. Zhang also takes the role of entrepreneurship mentor at government-backed incubators in Suzhou and Shanghai. Dr. Zhang successfully and continuously organized the 'Win in Suzhou · Win the Future' Venture Contest for International Entrepreneurs in Ireland for six years, significantly contributing to the technological exchange and cooperation between China and Ireland.

Dr. Zhang's research interests are diverse and include commercializing innovative software and hardware products like those in Metaverse, AI, and Robots. Her expertise lies in developing research-based product prototypes that produce practical applications and commercialization. This ability underscores her commitment to translating research into tangible solutions. 

Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Innovative Learning and Teaching

Serious Game Development

AI and Education

Inclusive Design

Emerging Tech Innovations & Development

Digital transformation

Innovation incubation

Leadership Development

Assistant Professor, Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Hub, XJTLU, 2024 - Present

Assistant Research Professor, Department of Education Information Technology, East China Normal University, 2020-2024 

Postdoctoral Fellowship, College of Education, East China Normal University, 2018–2020

Tutor & Demonstrator, School of Computer Science, University College Dublin, 2014-2018

ENT103TC Creative Innovator’s Toolkit-UG

ENT105TC Strategic Intelligence-UG

ENT207TC Digital Startup Lab-UG

ENT301TC Capstone Project-UG

ENT417TC Responsible Digital Innovation and Sustainability (Module Leader)-PG

2025, Executive Chair, Sub-Conference C1 (Artificial Intelligence in Education/Intelligent Tutoring System and Adaptive Learning), ICCE 2025 (International Conference on Computers in Education), 1–5 December 2025, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India (Publisher).

2025, Teaching Excellence Award, XJTLU Entrepreneur College (Taicang), Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (2024/25 Academic Year).

2025, Distinguished Instructor for outstanding mentorship in guiding student teams to successfully complete and present their project in the 2025 Rokid University AR Application Innovation Challenge Competition.

2024, Best Paper Award: Exploring the Use of Generative AI for Developing Evaluation Indicators for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Education in China at the International Conference on Entrepreneurship, Technology and Social Sciences (ICETSS 2024), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

2024, Appointed as Mentor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Taicang University Science and Technology Park (National Science and Technology Business Incubator), 2024–2027.

2019, Obtained Shanghai “Post-doctoral Excellence Talent Program”

2018, Second Prize of Taicang Global Innovation Competition (Ireland and UK Division). Project: Mobile-based Markerless augmented reality English learning app.

2017, The Champion of the Citadel Dublin Datathon (Win€20,000 Grands), Project: The intelligent rental recommendation system for cost-effective housing in Manhattan, United States. Organizer: Citadel and Citadel Securities, and the winning team is invited to compete $100,000 international prize in New York City. https://www.siliconrepublic.com/innovation/citadel-datathon-dublin

2016, The Champion of the #HackAccessDubin (Win€2,000 Grands), Organizer: Google & Nissan, Topic: to develop technologies for assisting people with disabilities in accessing public transportation: cash prizes and start-up support. https://youtu.be/oCknw-_L9OQ

2016, The Top 10 Excellent Start-up Project in the "Win in Suzhou, Win the future" Venture Contest for International Elites in European, organised by Suzhou, China. Project: Virtual reality technology (VR+VW+AR) creates the future.

2015, The Excellent Project of the 10th “Chun Hui Cup”, organized by the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China. Project: Innovative 3D printer development and design.

2014, The Top 10 Excellent team of the 3D Printer Construction and 3D Design Competition, awarded by the Academy of Innovation, University College Dublin.

2014, Winner of the Graduate Research and Innovation Fund, College of Human Sciences, University College Dublin.

2013, Winner of the Graduate Research and Innovation Fund, College of Human Sciences, University College Dublin.