Jingdong Zhang (June 2, 1968 – January 09, 2020) was a Chinese–Danish chemist and Professor of Chemistry at the

Technical University of Denmark The Technical University of Denmark (), often simply referred to as DTU, is a polytechnic university and school of engineering. It was founded in 1829 at the initiative of Hans Christian Ørsted as Denmark's first polytechnic, and it is today ran ...

. Her research considered nanochemistry and the novel materials for catalysis, as well as the development of advanced characterisation techniques such as scanning tunnelling microscopy and

atomic force microscopy Atomic force microscopy (AFM) or scanning force microscopy (SFM) is a very-high-resolution type of scanning probe microscopy (SPM), with demonstrated resolution on the order of fractions of a nanometer, more than 1000 times better than the opti ...

. She was elected to the Akademiet for de Tekniske Videnskaber in 2017.

Early life and education

Zhang was born in 1968 in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. She studied chemistry and environmental engineering at

Shanghai University Shanghai University (SHU) is a municipal public university in Shanghai, China. It is owned by the Shanghai Municipal People's Government. The university is part of Project 211 and the Double First-Class Construction. Shanghai University mai ...

. After earning her Master's degree, Zhang moved to the

Chinese Academy of Sciences The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS; ) is the national academy for natural sciences and the highest consultancy for science and technology of the People's Republic of China. It is the world's largest research organization, with 106 research i ...

' Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry (CIAC) for her graduate research. Here she worked under the supervision of Erkang Wang.

Research and career

Zhang was appointed to the Exploratory Research for Advanced Technology (ERATO) project, which saw her working on electrochemiscopy at the

Kyushu University , abbreviated to , is a public research university located in Fukuoka, Japan, on the island of Kyushu. Founded in 1911 as the fourth Imperial University in Japan, it has been recognised as a leading institution of higher education and resear ...

Sendai is the capital Cities of Japan, city of Miyagi Prefecture and the largest city in the Tōhoku region. , the city had a population of 1,098,335 in 539,698 households, making it the List of cities in Japan, twelfth most populated city in Japan. ...

, Japan. She joined the faculty at the

in 1998, where she was eventually promoted to Professor in 2016. Her research considered electrochemistry for nanomedicines and sustainable energy. In particular, she was interested in the electrochemistry that occurs at interfaces. During the late nineties, electrochemistry rapidly grew as a research area, integrating aspects of solid state physics and materials science. Zhang was quick to pick up new materials and characterisation techniques, including

at single molecule resolution. She was particularly interested in redox metalloproteins and enzymes and new (bio)electrochemical surfaces. These surfaces included graphene, nanoparticles and nanoporous metallic surfaces. She was awarded the

Danish Society of Engineers IDA, The Danish Society of Engineers, () is a Danish trade union and interest group for highly educated professionals with a background in technology, science or IT. It has the abbreviation IDA (''Ingeniørforeningen i Danmark''). IDA's headqua ...

Agnes and Betzy Prize in 2011. The following year she was elected to the

Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters ({{Langx, da, Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab or ''Videnskabernes Selskab'') is a Danish academy of science. The Royal Danish Academy was established on 13 November 1742, and was create ...

. In 2017 Zhang was appointed to the Akademiet for de Tekniske Videnskaber. Zhang was a member of the editorial board of ChemElectroChem. A special issue of ChemElectroChem honouring Zhang and her legacy was published in 2021.

Select publications

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Personal life

Zhang was married to Qijin Chi, a chemist at the

, with whom she had one son.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zhang, Jingdong 1968 births 2020 deaths Academic staff of the Technical University of Denmark Shanghai University alumni Electrochemists Chinese women chemists