Xiang Zhang is a physicist who received a PhD from UC Berkeley in 1996. He was an assistant professor at Pennsylvania State University (1996-1999), as well as an associate professor and full professor at UCLA (1999-2004) prior to joining UC Berkeley faculty in 2004. He is also the director of the Materials Sciences Division of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.
Xiang has a distinguished record of research. He joined MSD as a Faculty Staff Scientist and Principal Investigator in 2004, and is now the Ernest S. Kuh Endowed Chaired Professor at UC Berkeley and has served in past ten years as the Director of NSF Nano-scale Science and Engineering Center (SINAM). His research focuses on light-matter interactions, materials physics and photonics. His research was selected by Time Magazine as one of “Top Ten Scientific Discoveries of the Year” and “50 Best Inventions of the Year” in 2008, Discover Magazine’s “Top 100 Science Stories” in 2007, and R&D Magazine’s top 25 of the Most Innovative Products in 2006.