Zhang Xiang JP (Chinese: 张翔; pinyin: Zhāng Xiáng; born December 1963) is a Chinese-American physicist, mechanical engineer, and academic administrator. He has been serving as the 16th and current president and vice-chancellor of The University of Hong Kong since July 2018.
Zhang was the inaugural Ernest S. Kuh Endowed Chaired Professor at the University of California, Berkeley in the United States, the director of the National Science Foundation Nano-scale Science and Engineering Center, the director of materials science division, and a senior faculty scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.[1]
Zhang received a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science from Nanjing University, as well as a Master of Science from the University of Minnesota. He received a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley in 1996.[2]
From 1996 to 1999, he was assistant professor at the Pennsylvania State University and from 1999 to 2004, associate professor and then full professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, before joining the University of California, Berkeley. Zhang is an elected member of the United States National Academy of Engineering and of Academia Sinica, a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the Optical Society of America (OSA), American Association for the Advancement of Science and The International Society for Optical Engineering.[3]
Zhang published more than 390 journal papers. His research focuses on materials physics, metamaterials and nano-photonics.
On 15 December 2017, The University of Hong Kong appointed Zhang to the posts of president and vice-chancellor. It was the first time a candidate born and educated to undergraduate degree level in mainland China had been so appointed.[4][5] He assumed office in July 2018.[6]
On 3 July 2019, in a statement in response to the Storming of the Legislative Council Complex two days earlier, Zhang said that he had been "disheartened by the violence" and that he "would like to condemn such acts". In response to a backlash from some 2,000 HKU students, alumni and staff, he stated on 11 July that he opposed violence "by any party, and at any juncture". Zhang agreed to a request by the HKU Student Union to participate in a forum open to students, staff, alumni and the media.[7]
In April 2021, the Hong Kong University Students' Union criticized Zhang, and said that he was promoting national security education as a "political task" and was "destroying the autonomy of institutions."[8]
In October 2023, Zhang was accused by whistleblowers of potential misconduct, including the purchase of a HK$2 million (US$255,370) BMW vehicle without going through an open tender.[9][10]