Dr. Hang Zhang obtained his B.Eng. in Materials Science and Engineering from Tongji University in 2010, followed by an M.Sc. in Chemistry from RWTH Aachen University, Germany in 2012. He received his Ph.D. summa cum laude from RWTH Aachen University in 2017 and subsequently conducted postdoctoral research at Aalto University, Finland, where he progressed from Postdoctoral Researcher to Research Fellow with fundings from the Research Council of Finland.
In 2025, Dr. Zhang joined the Eastern Institute of Technology, Ningbo as an Associate Professor and Principal Investigator. His research focuses on the molecular design of polymeric hydrogel networks, nanocomposite materials, and bioinspired soft materials.
With over 30 publications in renowned international journals, his work has appeared in, e.g., Nature Materials, Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Communications, and Advanced Materials. He has secured competitive research grants exceeding €2.8 million, including the Research Council of Finland Postdoctoral and Research Fellow, as well as the prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant.
Dr. Zhang also serves as a peer reviewer for leading journals including Advanced Materials, Nature Communications, and Matter.
Living systems provide unlimited source of inspiration by their complex responses, regulation, dissipation of energy, adaptive behaviors, and feedback control. My research on life-inspired soft matter focuses on emergent properties in soft matter (particularly hydrogels) across length scales, from nanoscopic to macroscopic, and their applications in light-driven soft systems.
2012-2017 Dr.rer.nat. (summa cum laude) in Chemistry, DWI – Leibniz Institute for Interactive Materials, RWTH-Aachen University, Germany
2010-2012 Master of Science (sehr gut) in Chemistry, RWTH-Aachen University, Germany
2005-2010 Bachelor of Engineering in Materials Science and Engineering, Tongji University, China
2025- now, Associate Professor, Eastern Institute of Technology, Ningbo, China.
2020-2025, Academy Postdoctoral Researcher and Research Fellow, Aalto University, Finland.
2017 – 2020, Postdoctoral Researcher, Aalto University, Finland.
Google Scholar：
https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=64D1iIwAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&authuser=1&sortby=pubdate
5 representative works（* indicates corresponding author，† indicates co-first author）
1. C. Liang, V. Dudko, O. Khoruzhenko, X. Hong, Z.-P. Lv, I. Tunn, M. Umer, J. V. I. Timonen, M. B. Linder, J. Breu*, O. Ikkala*, and H. Zhang*, Stiff and self-healing hydrogels by polymer entanglements in co-planar nanoconfinement. Nature Materials, 2025, 24, 599–606.
2. Y.-H. Fang, C. Liang, V. Liljeström, Z.-P. Lv, O. Ikkala, and H. Zhang*, Toughening hydrogels with fibrillar connected double networks. Advanced Materials. 2024, 36, 2402282.
3. S. Hu, Y. Fang, C. Liang, M. Turunen, O. Ikkala*, and H. Zhang*, Thermally trainable dual network hydrogels. Nature Communications, 2023, 14, 3717.
4. H. Zhang, H. Zeng*, A. Eklund, H. Guo, A. Priimagi*, and O. Ikkala*, Feedback-controlled hydrogels with homeostatic oscillations and dissipative signal transduction. Nature Nanotechnology. 2022, 17, 1303.
5. H. Zhang†, H. Zeng†, A. Priimagi*, and O. Ikkala*, Programmable responsive hydrogels inspired by classical conditioning algorithm. Nature Communications. 2019, 10, 3267.
2024 ERC Starting Grant, European Research Council.
2019 ACS Central Science Best Poster Prize, ISMSC 2019, Lecce, Italy.
2017 Borchers Badge, RWTH-Aachen University, Aachen, Germany.
2015 Best Poster Prize, Lanxess Summer School, Aachen, Germany.
2014 Nature Physics Best Poster Prize, Jülich Soft Matter Days, Bad Honnef, Germany.
2014 Prize for Best Oral Presentation, Leibniz Young Polymer Scientist Forum, Aachen.
