SHORT BIO

I am a Lecturer (equivalent in level to Assistant Professor in the USA) in Data Science & Environmental Analytics at the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (DEES), The University of Manchester (UoM), United Kingdom. I am also a member of the Department Leadership Team (DLT) of DEES, where I serve as External Advisory Board and Employability Lead.

I received my Ph.D. degree in Environmental Engineering in Civil Engineering with a concentration in Computational Science and Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) in December 2020, under the supervision of Prof. Nicole Riemer and Prof. Lei Zhao. I also closely worked with Prof. Matthew West and Prof. Christopher Tessum.

I hold a Master of Computer Science degree and an M.S. in Agricultural and Biological Engineering, both from UIUC. Further before, I received my B.Eng. in Biosystems Engineering (2015) from Zhejiang University (ZJU, China).

In 2022, I was an Advanced Study Program (ASP) Postdoctoral Fellow at Computational & Information Systems Laboratory (CISL) and Climate & Global Dynamics Laboratory (CGD) of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), collaborating with Dr. David John Gagne (Machine Learning), Dr. Keith Oleson (Urban Climate), and Dr. John Schreck (Data Science).

In 2021, I was a Postdoctoral Research Scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, working on Earth and Environmental Data Science (funded by the Data Science Institute at Columbia University), under the supervision of Prof. Arlene M. Fiore (now at MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Prof. Daniel M. Westervelt jointly.

During my Ph.D. studies, I was a Data Scientist Intern at Bayer for three years (January 2018 to December 2020), mainly working for The Climate Corporation; a Graduate Assistant at the Department of Computer Science (CS) at UIUC during academic year 2018–2019; and an ORISE Ph.D. Intern/Researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) during Summer 2018, working with National Center for Computational Sciences - Advanced Data and Workflow Group.

I am passionate about learning and solving practical problems using Data Science (DS), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Cloud Computing, and High-Performance Computing (HPC). My work focuses on computer simulation, modeling, and spatiotemporal analysis of (1) urban climate and environment, (2) air quality and aerosol properties, and (3) complex agriculture-environment nexus system.

LATEST NEWS!

• [2024.02] Honored to join the editorial board of Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics as a new editor.


• [2024.02] My role as a Youth Editorial Board Member (YEBM) of Frontiers of Environmental Science & Engineering (FESE) (co-published by Springer Nature), initially for a one-year term, has been extended for another two years.


• [2024.01] Our paper on Improving BC Mixing State and CCN Activity Representation with Machine Learning in the Earth System Model has been published in Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems (JAMES). I would like to thank Prof. Minghuai Wang and Wenxiang Shen for leading this effort. Really proud that our Machine Learning-based emulator has been implemented within the Earth System Model.


• [2023.10] Glad to join the Department Leadership Team of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, where I serve as External Advisory Board and Employability Lead.


• [2023.09] Honored to be awarded as a "City Brain Open Research Youth Scholar" by Yunqi Academy of Engineering (a nonprofit research institute).


• [2023.06] Honored to be invited to join the UK's Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Peer Review College (PRC) as a PRC Member.


• [2023.06] I am glad to be an executive committee member of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Global Environmental Change section.


• [2023.03] Our "AutoML + PM2.5 estimates" paper was selected for featuring as an AGU Editor's Highlight, and this has just been highlighted on Eos.org. Fewer than 2% of papers are selected to be featured in this way.


• [2023.03] Our paper on Automated Machine Learning (AutoML) to evaluate the information content of tropospheric trace gas columns for fine particle estimates over India: a modeling testbed has been published in Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems (JAMES). I would like to thank all the co-authors and reviewers/Editor.


• [2023.02] Our work on "Machine Learning + Earth System Modeling for aerosol modelling" has been recognized as a top cited paper in Earth and Space Science (an AGU journal).


• [2023.02] I am glad to be a Guest Editor of the journal Environmental Research Letters (for the Special Issue "Focus on Human-Earth System Interactions under Climate Change").


• [2023.02] I am glad to join the Youth Editorial Board Member (YEBM) of Frontiers of Environmental Science & Engineering (FESE), a journal of Chinese Academy of Engineering, co-published by Springer Nature.


• [2023.01] Honored to be elected as a committee member of the American Meteorological Society Committee on Artificial Intelligence Applications to Environmental Science (known as the "AMS AI Committee").


• [2023.01] I am co-chairing four sessions of 22nd Conference on Artificial Intelligence for Environmental Science, 103rd American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting.


• [2022.09] Honored to be a University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) International Affiliate Representative.


• [2022.09] Our book on aerosol modelling is out! Our UIUC team (led by Prof. Nicole Riemer) wrote "Chapter 5. Coagulation."


• [2022.09] Honored to be a keynote speaker at the 2022 International Association for Urban Climate (IAUC) Virtual Poster Conference to share my thoughts about "Urban Climate Informatics: An emerging direction in urban climate research."


• [2022.08] THRILLED to announce my new role as an Assistant Professor in Data Science & Environmental Analytics at The University of Manchester!

[More News]

SELECTED AWARDS

• City Brain Open Research Youth Scholar, Awarded by Yunqi Academy of Engineering (a nonprofit research institute), 2023
• CAPEES Founding President Best Paper Award, Chinese-American Professors in Environmental Engineering and Science (CAPEES), 2022
• American Meteorological Society (AMS) Early Career Leadership Academy (ECLA) Member (21 ECLA class members were selected in 2022 across sectors of the weather, water, and climate enterprise), 2022
• Invited Participant: Atmospheric Chemistry Colloquium for Emerging Senior Scientists, ACCESS XVI (an honor bestowed biennially to 25 young researchers worldwide in Atmospheric Chemistry), 2021
• Advanced Study Program (ASP) Postdoctoral Fellowship (~10 awardees per year worldwide in Atmospheric Research), 2021 (deferred to start in 2022)
• Student Registration Waiver Grant (previously known as travel grants), American Association for Aerosol Research, 2020
• AI for Earth, Microsoft, 2020
• Earth on AWS & Amazon Sustainability Data Initiative, Amazon, 2020
• Kuck Computational Science & Engineering Scholarship, Grainger College of Engineering, UIUC, 2019
• Loh Kwan Chen Fellowship, College of Engineering, UIUC, 2019
• Travel Grant, Deep Learning for Science School at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), 2019
• Outstanding Poster Award, School of Earth, Society, & Environment, UIUC, 2019
• Travel Grant, 18th Conference on Artificial and Computational Intelligence and its Applications to the Environmental Sciences (18 AI), American Meteorological Society (AMS) 99th Annual Meeting, 2018
• Finalist, SMOKY MOUNTAIN Computational Sciences and Engineering Conference (SMC) Data Challenge, 2018
• First Place, Student Paper Award, Association of Overseas Chinese Agricultural, Biological, and Food Engineers (AOCABFE), 2016
• Tau Beta Pi (The Engineering Honor Society), inducted 2016
• Alpha Epsilon (The Honor Society of Agricultural, Biological & Food Engineering), inducted 2015

SELECTED CERTIFICATES

• Fundamental Engineer (FE) in Environmental Engineering, issued by NCEES, 2017 (Verifiable Link)

RESEARCH THEMES

• Environmental Engineering and Science
• Atmospheric and Climate Science
• Computational Science and Engineering
• Data Science and AI
• Agriculture

SELECTED RESEARCH PRODUCTS

• Book Chapter
1. Riemer, N., West, M., Curtis, J. H., & Zheng, Z. (2022). “Chapter 5: Coagulation”. Introduction to Aerosol Modelling: From Theory to Code (Editor: David L. Topping and Michael Bane). John Wiley & Sons. ISBN: 978-1-119-62565-0
• Peer-reviewed publications
After joining The University of Manchester
1. Chen, J., Zhu, S., Wang, P., Zheng, Z., Su, S., Li, X., Xu, C., Yu, K., Chen, R., Kan, H., Zhang, H., & Meng, X. (2024). Predicting particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, and ozone across Great Britain with high spatiotemporal resolution based on random forest models. Science of The Total Environment. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.171831
2. Li, W., Riemer, N., Xu, L., Wang, Y., Adachi, K., Shi, Z., Zhang, D., Zheng, Z., & Laskin, A. (2024). Microphysical properties of atmospheric soot and organic particles: measurements, modeling, and impacts. npj Climate and Atmospheric Science. doi: 10.1038/s41612-024-00610-8
3. Shen, W., Wang, M., Riemer, N., Zheng, Z., Liu, Y., & Dong, X. (2024). Improving BC mixing state and CCN activity representation with machine learning in the Community Atmosphere Model Version 6 (CAM6). Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems. doi: 10.1029/2023MS003889
4. Zheng, H., Kong, S., Zhai, S., Sun, X., Cheng, Y., Yao, L., Song, C., Zheng, Z., Shi, Z., & Harrison, R. M. (2023). An intercomparison of weather normalization of PM2.5 concentration using traditional statistical methods, machine learning, and chemistry transport models. npj Climate and Atmospheric Science. doi: 10.1038/s41612-023-00536-7
5. Chen, X., Ye, C., Wang, Y., Wu, Z., Zhu, T., Zhang, F., Ding, X., Shi, Z., Zheng, Z., & Li, W. (2023). Quantifying evolution of soot mixing state from transboundary transport of biomass burning emissions. iScience. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.108125
6. Tang, W., Emmons, L. K., Worden, H. M., Kumar, R., He, C., Gaubert, B., Zheng, Z., Tilmes, S., Buchholz, R. R., Martinez-Alonso, S.-E., Granier, C., Soulie, A., McKain, K., Daube, B., Peischl, J., Thompson, C., & Levelt, P. (2023). Application of the Multi-Scale Infrastructure for Chemistry and Aerosols version 0 (MUSICAv0) for air quality in Africa. Geoscientific Model Development. doi: 10.5194/gmd-16-6001-2023
7. Li, L., Fang, Y., Zheng, Z., Shi, M., Longo, M., Koven, C. D., Holm, J. A., Fisher, R. A., McDowell, N. G., Chambers, J., & Leung, L. R. (2023). A machine learning approach targeting parameter estimation for plant functional type coexistence modeling using ELM-FATES (v2.0). Geoscientific Model Development. doi: 10.5194/gmd-16-4017-2023
8. Raheja, G., et al. (including Zheng, Z.) (2023). Low-Cost Sensor Performance Intercomparison, Correction Factor Development, and 2+ Years of Ambient PM2.5 Monitoring in Accra, Ghana. Environmental Science & Technology. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.2c09264
9. Zheng, Z.*, Fiore, A. M., Westervelt, D. M., Milly, G. P., Goldsmith, J., Karambelas, A., Curci, G., Randles, C. A., Paiva, A. R., Wang, C., & Wu, Q. (2023). Automated machine learning to evaluate the information content of tropospheric trace gas columns for fine particle estimates over India: a modeling testbed. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems. doi: 10.1029/2022MS003099
• Featured as an AGU Editor's Highlight and published on Eos.org
• Fewer than 2% of papers are selected to be featured in this way
10. Pang, Y., Chen, M., Wang, Y., Chen, X., Teng, X., Kong, S., Zheng, Z., & Li, W. (2023). Morphology and fractal dimension of size-resolved soot particles emitted from combustion sources. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres. doi: 10.1029/2022JD037711
11. Park, M., Zheng, Z., Riemer, N., & Tessum, C. W. (2022). Learned 1-D advection solver to accelerate air quality modeling. Thirty-sixth Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2022), The Symbiosis of Deep Learning and Differential Equations (DLDE) - II. arXiv: 2211.03906

Prior to joining The University of Manchester
12. Yao, Y., Curtis, J. H., Ching, J., Zheng, Z., & Riemer, N. (2022). Quantifying the effects of mixing state on aerosol optical properties. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. doi: 10.5194/acp-22-9265-2022
13. Li, H., Yuan, F., Shen, L., Liu, Y., Zheng, Z., & Zhou, X. (2022). Improving the WRF/urban modeling system in China by developing a national urban dataset. Geoscience Frontiers. doi: 10.1016/j.gsf.2022.101385
14. Zheng, Z.*, West, M., Zhao, L., Ma, P., Liu, X., & Riemer, N.* (2021). Quantifying the structural uncertainty of the aerosol mixing state representation in a modal model. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. doi: 10.5194/acp-21-17727-2021
• Media Coverage: US DOE Office of Science Research Highlight
15. Zheng, Z., Zhao, L. & Oleson, K.W. (2021). Large model structural uncertainty in global projections of urban heat waves. Nature Communications. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-24113-9
• Media Coverage: EurekAlert/AAAS
16. Zhao, L., Oleson, K., Bou-Zeid, E., Krayenhoff, E.S., Bray A., Zhu, Q., Zheng, Z., Chen, C., & Oppenheimer, M. (2021). Global multi-model projections of local urban climates. Nature Climate Change. doi: 10.1038/s41558-020-00958-8
• Selected as the Cover of Nature Climate Change February issue
• Media Coverage: U. of I. News Bureau, EurekAlert/AAAS
17. Zheng, Z.*, Curtis, J. H., Yao, Y., Gasparik, J. T., Anantharaj, V. G., Zhao, L., West, M., & Riemer, N.* (2021). Estimating Submicron Aerosol Mixing State at the Global Scale with Machine Learning and Earth System Modeling. Earth and Space Science. doi:10.1029/2020EA001500
• Top Cited Paper, Recognized by Wiley
• Media Coverage: US DOE Office of Science Research Highlight
18. Zheng, Z., Fiddes, K., & Yang, L.* (2021). A narrative review on environmental impacts of cannabis cultivation. Journal of Cannabis Research (Part of Springer Nature). doi:10.1186/s42238-021-00090-0
19. Nandy, L., Yao, Y., Zheng, Z., & Riemer, N. (2021). Water uptake and optical properties of mixed organic-inorganic particles. Aerosol Science & Technology. doi:10.1080/02786826.2021.1966378
20. Zheng, Z.*, Ching, J., Curtis, J. H., Yao, Y., Xu, P., West, M., & Riemer, N. (2020). Unsupervised Regionalization of Particle-resolved Aerosol Mixing State Indices on the Global Scale. Thirty-fourth Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2020), AI for Earth Sciences Workshop. arXiv: 2012.03365
21. Xu, P., et al., Zheng, Z., Luan, S., & Zheng, Y. (2020). Spatial variation of reactive nitrogen emission from China’s croplands codetermined by regional urbanization and its feedback to global climate change. Geophysical Research Letters. doi: 10.1029/2019GL086551
22. Feng, Y., Lu, Z., Zheng, Z., Zhou, W., Huang, R., Sun, P., & Cao, Q. (2019). Chasing Total Solar Eclipses on Twitter: Big Social Data Analytics in Once-in-a-lifetime Events. 2019 IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM). doi: 10.1109/GLOBECOM38437.2019.9013304
23. Xu, P., Liao, Y., Zheng, Y., Zhao, C., Zhang, X., Zheng, Z., & Luan, S. (2019). Northward shift of historical methane emission hotspots from the livestock sector in China and assessment of potential mitigation options. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology. doi: 10.1016/j.agrformet.2019.03.022
24. Zheng, Z., Yang, L., Gates, R. S., Wu, J., & Wang, X. (2017). Impedance-based moisture content sensor assessment for gas-phase biofilter media. Transactions of the ASABE. doi: 10.13031/trans.12335
25. Zheng, Z., Lin, X., Zhu, S., He, J., Cao, Y., & Ye, Z. (2016). Investigation on the bactericidal efficacy of atomized slightly acidic electrolyzed water. Chinese Journal of Disinfection. doi: 10.11726/j.issn.1001-7658.2016.04.004 (Peer-viewed, In Chinese)
• Others
1. Brelsford, C., Jones, A., et al., & Zheng, Z. (2021). Multi-Sectoral Urban Interactions: Fundamental Science Needs to Inform Pathways to More Resilient Communities in a Changing Climate. Workshop Report: Multi-Sectoral Urban Interactions.
2. Zheng, Z. (2020). Coupling data science and numerical simulations to empower atmospheric and environmental research. Doctoral Dissertation, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
3. Zheng, Z., Riemer, N., West, M., & Anantharaj, V. G. (2019). Evaluation of machine learning approaches to estimate aerosol mixing state metrics in atmospheric models. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Technical Memo. doi: 10.2172/1513380 (Peer-reviewed internally within Oak Ridge National Laboratory)
4. Zheng, Z. (2016). Impedance-based moisture content sensor assessment for gas-phase biofilters. Master's Thesis, Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
• Invited Talks
1. Zheng, Z. (2022). [Keynote Address] Global Projections of Urban Heat Waves with Machine Learning. 2022 International Association for Urban Climate (IAUC) Virtual Poster Conference, International Association for Urban Climate, Virtual, September 1. (View)
2. Zheng, Z., & Zhao, L. (2020). Future Climate-Driven Risks to Urban Area. Night of Ideas: Alive! (part of La Nuit des Idées, a global series coordinated worldwide by the Institut Français; this event is organized by the Field Museum and the Consulate General of France in Chicago), Chicago, IL., January 31. (Media Coverage)
3. Zheng, Z., & Riemer, N. (2019). Coarse-Graining of Aerosol Mixing State Metrics Empowered by Machine Learning. International Aerosol Modeling Algorithms (IAMA) Conference 2019, Davis, CA., December 5. (View)

TEACHING & MENTORING

• Teaching
• [Spring 2024] Co-Instructor, DATA72000: Extended Research Project Module (Research Training Sessions: "Automated Machine Learning (AutoML)"), MSc Data Science Programme, UoM
• [Spring 2024] Instructor, EART60702: Earth and Environmental Data Science, MSc Data Science Programme, UoM
• [Spring 2024] Co-Instructor, DATA70202: Applying Data Science, MSc Data Science Programme, UoM
• [Spring 2024] Co-Instructor, EART62062: Environmental MSc Tutorial, MSc Pollution & Environmental Control Programme, UoM
• [Spring 2023] Co-Instructor, EART62062: Environmental MSc Tutorial, MSc Pollution & Environmental Control Programme, UoM
• [Spring 2023] UoM Project Mentor, DATA70202: Applying Data Science, MSc Data Science Programme, UoM
• Current Mentees
As a Lead Supervisor
• [2024-current] Yang Cao. Visiting PhD Candidate (Atmospheric Sciences) at Nanjing University, China (UoM Co-Supervisor: Prof. Hugh Coe)
• [2024-current] Zhiyi Song. PhD/MPhil Student (Environmental Science) at UoM (Co-Supervisor: Prof. David Topping)
• [2024-current] Jiyang Xia. PhD Student (Environmental Science) at UoM (Co-Supervisor: Prof. David Topping)
• [2023-current] Junjie Yu. PhD Student (Environmental Science) at UoM (Co-Supervisor: Prof. David Topping)
• Significant Contributor to City Brain Open Research (Open Data Computing Workshop), awarded by Yunqi Academy of Engineering (a nonprofit research institute)
• [2023-current] Fei Jiang. PhD Student (Environmental Science) at UoM (Co-Supervisors: Prof. Hugh Coe, Prof. David Topping)
• [2023-current] Yuan Sun. PhD Student (Environmental Science) at UoM (Co-Supervisors: Prof. David Schultz, Prof. David Topping)
• Royal Meteorological Society (RMetS) Student Ambassador
As a Co-Supervisor
• [2024-current] Omar Alqusair. PhD Student (Chemical Engineering) at UoM (Lead Supervisor: Dr. Jie Li)
• [2023-current] Haofan Wang. Visiting PhD Student (Atmospheric Physics & Atmospheric Environment) at Sun Yat-sen University, China (Lead UoM Supervisor: Prof. David Topping)
• [2023-current] Tianhang Zhang. PhD Student (Atmospheric Sciences) at UoM (Lead Supervisor: Prof. David Schultz)
• [2023-current] Ali Karagoz. PhD Student (Chemical Engineering) at UoM (Lead Supervisor: Dr. Jie Li)
• [2022-current] Hao Zhang. PhD Candidate (Atmospheric Sciences) at UoM (Lead Supervisor: Prof. David Topping)
• [2022-current] Yuchen Zeng. PhD Candidate (Atmospheric Sciences) at UoM (Lead Supervisor: Prof. David Topping)
As a Examiner
• [2023.10.12] Ali Bony Kaya. PhD Student (Chemical Engineering) at UoM (Lead Supervisor: Dr. Lin Ma)
• Past Mentees (After joining the UoM)
As a Lead Supervisor
• [2023] Kuang Wang. Undergrad Student (Biosystems Engineering) at ZJU -> PhD Student (Computer Science) at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen
As a Co-Supervisor
• [2022-2023] Shengnan Fu. Visiting PhD Candidate (Hydrology and Water Resources) at Dalian University of Technology, China (Lead UoM Supervisor: Prof. David Schultz)
• Past Mentees (During my MS/PhD studies and Postdoctoral Research)
• [2021] Reetahan Mukhopadhyay. MS (Computer Science) at Columbia -> Virtualitics, Inc.
• [2020-2021] Reetahan Mukhopadhyay. Undergrad (Computer Science) at UIUC -> MS at Columbia University
• [2017] Yilan Cheng. Undergrad (Civil Engineering) at UIUC -> MS at UC Berkeley
• [2016-2017] Yuchen He. Undergrad (Computer Science) at UIUC -> MCS at UIUC
• [2016] Jing Wu. Undergrad (Agricultural Resources and Environment) at ZJU -> MS+PhD at ZJU
• [2015] Ciju Francis. Undergrad (Electrical Engineering) at UIUC -> Chicago Public Schools

SERVICE

• Profession
• [2023-current] Membership (Selected), UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Peer Review College (PRC)
• [2023-current] Committee Member (Elected), American Meteorological Society Committee on Artificial Intelligence Applications to Environmental Science (AMS AI Committee)
• [2023-2024] Executive Committee Member, American Geophysical Union (AGU) Global Environmental Change (GEC) section
• [2022-current] University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) International Affiliate Representative
• Editorial Boards
• [2024-current] Editor, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
• [2023-2025] Youth Editorial Board Member (YEBM), Frontiers of Environmental Science & Engineering (FESE, co-published by Springer Nature)
• [2023-2024] Guest Editor, Environmental Research Letters
• Event Organizations
• [2023] Program Committee, Data Science of the Natural Environment (hosted by UoM, and run jointly with Alan Turing Institute)
• [2023] Co-Organiser, Open Data Computing Workshop on Urban Climate
• [2023] Program Committee, Advances in Data Science and AI (ADSAI) Conference (Manchester)
• [2021] Program Committee, International Aerosol Modeling Algorithms (IAMA) Conference
• [2023, 2024] Session Co-Convener, European Geosciences Union (EGU) General Assembly
• [2021, 2023] Session Co-Chair, International Aerosol Modeling Algorithms (IAMA) Conference
• [2020-2023] Session Co-Chair, American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting
• Grant Panelist/Review
• [2021-current] National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
• [2021-current] National Science Foundation (NSF)
• University
• [2023-current] Department Leadership Team, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
• [2023-current] External Advisory Board and Employability Lead, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences

EDUCATION AND TRAINING

• Advanced Study Program (ASP) Postdoctoral Fellow, National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), January 2022 – August 2022
(~10 awardees per year worldwide in Atmospheric Research)
• Focuses: Urban Adaptation, Urban Climate Modeling, Machine Learning
• Mentors: Dr. David John Gagne, Dr. Keith Oleson, and Dr. John Schreck.
• Affiliation: Computational & Information Systems Laboratory (CISL) and Climate & Global Dynamics Laboratory (CGD)
• Postdoctoral Research Scientist, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, January 2021 – January 2022
(U.S. News Program Rankings: #4 worldwide in Geosciences)
• Focuses: Earth and Environmental Data Science, Remote Sensing, Air Quality
• Advisors: Prof. Arlene M. Fiore (now at MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Prof. Daniel M. Westervelt
• Affiliation: Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
• PhD, Environmental Engineering in Civil Engineering with a concentration in Computational Science and Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2020
(U.S. News Program Rankings: #4)
• Advisors: Prof. Nicole Riemer and Prof. Lei Zhao
• Dissertation Committee Members: Dr. Valentine G. Anantharaj and Prof. Matthew West
• Ph.D. Dissertation: Coupling data science and numerical simulations to empower atmospheric and environmental research
• MCS, Computer Science, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2022
(CSRankings: Computer Science Rankings #2; U.S. News Program Rankings: #5)
• I completed this degree on a part-time basis
• MS, Agricultural and Biological Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2016
• Advisor: Prof. Xinlei Wang
• Thesis Committee Members: Prof. Richard S. Gates and Prof. Liangcheng Yang
• M.S. Thesis: Impedance-based moisture content sensor assessment for gas-phase biofilters
• BEng, Biosystems Engineering, Zhejiang University (ZJU), 2015
(Top 2 "A+" Agricultural Engineering Program in China)
• Advisor: Prof. Zhangying Ye
• Study Abroad Programme, English Language Courses, The University of Manchester, 28 January – 21 February, 2013
• Introduction to University Life and British Cultural Studies, University Language Centre

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

• 09/2019 – 12/2020: Data Scientist Intern at Bayer AG
• Affiliation (The Climate Corporation): Science -> Enabling -> Sustainability (05/2019 – 12/2020)
• Affiliation (The Climate Corporation): Science -> Data Insights & Discovery (09/2019 – 05/2020)
• 09/2018 – 07/2019: Data Scientist Intern at Bayer AG
• Affiliation (The Climate Corporation): Science -> Data Insights & Discovery (01/2019 – 07/2019)
• Affiliation (The Climate Corporation): Science -> Measurements Team -> Sensor Intelligence (09/2018 – 12/2018)
• 05/2018 – 08/2018: Researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)
• Affiliation: National Center for Computational Sciences -> Advanced Data and Workflow Group
• Media Coverage: ORNL
• 01/2018 – 05/2018: Data Scientist-UIUC Innovation Center at Monsanto Company
• Affiliation (The Climate Corporation): Science -> Measurements Team
• Affiliation (Monsanto Company): GLB Breeding -> Analytics & Pipeline Design
• Got summer intern (05/2018 – 08/2018) return offer

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

• 08/2019 – 05/2020: Graduate Teaching Assistant for CEE 202: Engineering Risk & Uncertainty
• Affiliation: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE)
• Products: Website (deployed by GitHub Pages and GitHub Actions) | GitHub repository
• 08/2018 – 05/2019: Graduate Assistant for CS 357: Numerical Methods
• Affiliation: Department of Computer Science (CS)
• 09/2015 – 12/2015: Graduate Grader for TSM 372: Environmental Control & HVAC Systems
• Affiliation: Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering

CONTACT INFORMATION

• Email:
  zhonghua DOT zheng AT manchester DOT ac DOT uk
  
• Office Address:
  Room 4.24, Simon Building
  Oxford Road
  Manchester, England, United Kingdom
  Postcode: M13 9PL
  Phone: +44 1615294158
• Address for Publications:
  Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom
• Structure:
  Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences <- School of Natural Sciences <- Faculty of Science and Engineering <- The University of Manchester
• Interested in f2f or Zoom meeting?
  Please click HERE if you would like to schedule a meeting with me.