Award-winning chemist leaves US after nearly 30 years to join China's university

Zhang accepted his appointment as deputy dean and chair professor of GBU's School of Physical Sciences from university president Tian Gang at the school's campus in Dongguan, Guangdong province, on July 2.

He said family considerations and research opportunities motivated his return to China. The passing of his father in 2020 and pandemic-related travel restrictions "had a profound effect" on him, he said in an email to the South China Morning Post.

The move will also allow him to be closer to his aging mother while continuing high-level scientific research. He said he hopes the school will conduct internationally influential fundamental research while training future scientists "who truly understand science, technology and industrial needs."

Chinese chemist Zhang Wei. Photo courtesy of University of Colorado Boulder

Zhang earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Peking University in 2000 before moving to the U.S. for graduate studies. He received a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2005 and completed three years of postdoctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He joined the University of Colorado Boulder as an assistant professor in 2008, where he developed advanced chemical materials with applications in solar energy conversion, chemical sensing, catalysis, gas separation and storage.

He received the Sloan Research Fellowship in Chemistry in 2013 in recognition of his research. Established in 1955, the fellowship supports outstanding early-career researchers. Sixty Sloan Fellows have gone on to win Nobel Prizes, including 21 in chemistry.

He was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 2014, full professor with tenure in 2018, and became chair of the university's chemistry department in 2022.

His research spans two-dimensional materials, porous organic materials, sustainable and recyclable polymers, molecular separation, carbon capture, flexible sensors and all-solid-state battery materials. In 2024, he published a paper in the journal Science describing a more energy-efficient and cost-effective approach to gas separation, a process widely used in healthcare, natural gas production and carbon capture.

He has published more than 200 scientific papers that have been cited more than 30,000 times. In addition to the Sloan fellowship, Zhang was elected a senior member of the National Academy of Inventors and was named a Highly Cited Researcher by Clarivate in 2024 and 2025.

Great Bay University was approved by China in June 2025 as one of the country's new-generation research universities. Its School of Physical Sciences, the institution's first academic school, aims to support national strategic priorities and the industrial development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area.