Professor Zhang grew up in a little but well-known town Hetian (Khotan) on the Silk Road in the Taklamakan desert in the northwest of China. There, she experienced the “Great Cultural Revolution” in 1960s and 70s, and went to a Re-Education farm in mid-1970s. After obtaining a Bachelor’s degree in English in the early 1980s, she went on to study Western Art History at the graduate level in Beijing, obtaining an MA in Art History at Chinese Academy of Arts in 1985. Since 1987, she has lived and studied in the United States, where she obtained a second art history MA at the University of Cincinnati in 1990, and a Ph. D in Pre-Columbian Art from the University of Texas at Austin in 1996. She now teaches the Arts of the Pre-Columbian Americas, Art of India, China, and Japan, as well as Approaches to Non-Western Art, and Approaches to Western Art, at William Paterson.

Professor Zhang’s research interests deal with comparative studies between Pre-Columbian American cultures and Asian cultures. She has published scholarly articles in ancient American ritual arts and writing systems. Her current research projects include a study on the Olmec hieroglyphic writing, a book manuscript on the comparisons between ancient Americas and Asia, and another book manuscript on the Maya civilization. In the summer 2002, Professor Zhang was awarded a NEH grant which allowed her to travel to Mesoamerica to study the Maya world, and in 2006 she again won an NEH grant to study Silk Road topics.