Rong Zhang is a Chinese-American physicist and climate scientist at the

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (abbreviated as NOAA ) is an United States scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce that forecasts weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditio ...

. Her research considers the impact of Atlantic meridional overturning circulation on climate phenomena. She was elected Fellow of the

American Meteorological Society The American Meteorological Society (AMS) is the premier scientific and professional organization in the United States promoting and disseminating information about the Atmospheric sciences, atmospheric, Oceanography, oceanic, and Hydrology, hydr ...

in 2018 and appointed their Bernhard Haurwitz Memorial Lecturer in 2020.

Early life and education

Zhang was born in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. She attended

Tsinghua University Tsinghua University (; abbreviation, abbr. THU) is a National university, national Public university, public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, Minis ...

, where she studied electronic engineering. After graduating, she moved to

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...

, where she worked toward a graduate degree in physics. She became interested in careers that combined fundamental science with societal impact. She was a doctoral researcher at

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

working on climate science.

Research and career

Zhang joined

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

as a postdoctoral fellow in the program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (AOS). The AOS is a partnership between Princeton and the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL). She has investigated the role of Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) on Atlantic Multidecadal Variability. She has said that this variability could slow the pace of Arctic summer sea icea loss. Zhang showed that the sea in the

Gulf of Maine The Gulf of Maine is a large gulf of the Atlantic Ocean on the east coast of North America. It is bounded by Cape Cod at the eastern tip of Massachusetts in the southwest and by Cape Sable Island at the southern tip of Nova Scotia in the northeast ...

has warmed faster than 99% of the global ocean, which results in changes in the distribution and species composition. Her climate models, which use a 10 km ocean grid, have ten times the resolution of those developed by the

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. Its job is to advance scientific knowledge about climate change caused by human activities. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) a ...

. She showed that warming in the Northwest Atlantic increases salinity because of a change in water mass distribution (the Labrador Current retreats and the

Gulf Stream The Gulf Stream, together with its northern extension the North Atlantic Current, North Atlantic Drift, is a warm and swift Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic ocean current that originates in the Gulf of Mexico and flows through the Straits of Florida a ...

shifts northerly). In 2018, Zhang was elected a Fellow of the

. She was appointed their Bernhard Haurwitz Memorial Lecturer in 2020.

Selected publications

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zhang, Rong American women physicists Chinese women physicists American women scientists Chinese women scientists Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni MIT Department of Physics alumni Tsinghua University alumni Geophysicists Women geophysicists American geophysicists Chinese geophysicists Chinese American American Meteorological Society people Fellows of the American Meteorological Society Living people Year of birth missing (living people)