Zhoujian "ZJ" Zhang
Assistant Professor of Astronomy
PhD, University of Hawai'i, 2021
- Office Location
- 463 Bausch & Lomb Hall
- Web Address
- Website
Biography
ZJ Zhang joined the University of Rochester as an Assistant Professor in 2025. Before that, he was a NASA Sagan Fellow at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas at Austin. He received his M.S. and Ph.D.in Astronomy from the University of Hawaii in 2021, and his B.S. in Astronomy from Nanjing University in 2015.
Research Overview
Professor Zhang’s research focuses on characterizing the atmospheres of exoplanets, brown dwarfs, and low-mass stars to assess how accurately their atmospheric properties can be probed and how these properties reveal clues about their formation and evolution. He also uses wide-field digital sky surveys to discover new exoplanets and brown dwarfs, particularly those in wide orbits around stars or moving through space as members of stellar associations.
Professor Zhang leads several observational programs using both space-based telescopes, such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), and ground-based facilities, including Keck, Gemini, the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT), the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT), and NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF). To interpret these data, he applies atmospheric modeling techniques such as forward modeling and atmospheric retrievals.
Research Interests
- Exoplanets, brown dwarfs, and cool stars; wide-field digital sky surveys; observational astronomy; atmospheric modeling.