In May 2024, Bei Zhang joined the Yangtze River Delta Smart Oasis Innovation Center at Zhejiang University as a Hundred Talents Program Researcher. He earned his Bachelor's and Ph.D. degrees from Shandong University in 2014 and 2019, respectively. Following his Ph.D., he conducted postdoctoral research at the National University of Singapore in 2019. In 2020, he was awarded the prestigious JSPS Postdoctoral Fellowship (with a global acceptance rate of 10%), which allowed him to further his research at Tokyo Institute of Technology.

Dr. Zhang's research focuses on the development of advanced environmental carbon materials and their applications in pollution control. He has published a series of papers as the first author in leading international journals, including Chemical Reviews, Resources, Conservation and Recycling, Journal of Materials Chemistry A, Carbon, and Journal of Cleaner Production. His work includes one ESI Hot Paper and one ESI Highly Cited Paper, accumulating over 900 citations. He holds two granted patents and has led two research projects funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), while also playing a key role in two international and domestic research projects.

In 2023, Dr. Zhang received the IWA Young Water Professional Award from the International Water Association. He also serves as a guest editor for the journals Water and Frontiers in Environmental Chemistry.