Xiaoli Zhang

Dr Zhang received her B.Sc. in Chemistry from Shandong University in China, followed by both her M.Sc. and PhD in Materials Chemistry in South Korea. She subsequently worked as a research fellow at Monash University and the University of Melbourne, where she focused on photovoltaic materials and device engineering. She later commenced a Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellowship at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), advancing research in solar fuel generation in Australia.

After extensive training in simulation-directed catalyst design at University College London (UK), Dr Zhang joined Zhengzhou University in China as an academic, where she was later promoted to Professor.  In collaboration with researchers at the University of Cambridge, she received the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Seal of Excellence Award under the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 program.

In 2024, Dr Zhang returned to Australia to join the ARC Centre of Excellence for Green Electrochemical Transformation of Carbon Dioxide (GETCO₂) at RMIT University.  She was recently awarded the prestigious JSPS Invitational Fellowship by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science to establish collaborations with leading Japanese scientists on operando spectroscopy for characterising reactive species in CO₂ transformation. She was also recognised by The Australian as one of the Top 250 Australian Researchers 2026.