Background Information: 

Chunyi Zhang is an assistant professor at the Eastern Institute of Technology, Ningbo. She obtained her Ph.D. from Peking University in 2019 (Advisor: Wei Kang) and conducted postdoctoral research at Princeton University (Advisors: Annabella Selloni, Roberto Car) and Temple University (Advisors: Xifan Wu, Michael Klein) in the United States. She joined the Eastern Institute of Technology in 2025. Her primary research interests include computational condensed matter physics, water science, and interface science. In recent years, she has published multiple first-author papers in journals such as Nature Communications, Physical Review Letters, Physical Review B, and The Journal of Physical Chemistry B. Her research has been featured as a news article in Science magazine (DOI: 10.1126/science.adk0023).

Research Field:

Computational Condensed Matter Physics.

Applying and developing computational simulation methods—such as molecular dynamics simulations, first-principles density functional theory, and machine learning—to simulate, interpret, and predict the properties of materials and the mechanism of physical phenomena at the atomic scale with the support of high-performance computers. The main research areas include but are not limited to: (1) Water and aqueous solutions, (2) Water interfaces, (3) Properties of materials under unconventional conditions, and (4) Development of computational simulation methods and software.

Educational Background:

2014-2019: PhD. in Fluid Mechanics, College of Engineering, Peking University

2010-2014: B.S. in Engineering Mechanics, School of Mechanical Engineering, Tianjin University

Work Experience:

2025.01-Present: Assistant Professor, College of Science at EIT

2023.04-2025.01: Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Chemistry, Princeton University

2019.09-2023.03: Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Physics, Temple University

Representative Works:

15 SCI papers with 380+ citations and H-index of 10.

Google Scholar:

https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=Kq_sijoAAAAJ&view_op=list_works

10 Representative Works (* refers to the corresponding author)

[1] Chunyi Zhang, Marcos F. Calegari Andrade, Zachary K. Goldsmith, Abhinav S. Raman, Yifan Li, Pablo M. Piaggi, Xifan Wu, Roberto Car*, Annabella Selloni*, Molecular-scale insights into the electrical double layer at oxide-electrolyte interfaces, Nat. Commun., 15(1), 10270 (2024).

[2] Chunyi Zhang, Shuwen Yue, Athanassios Z Panagiotopoulos, Michael L Klein*, Xifan Wu*. Why does dissolving salt in water decrease its dielectric permittivity. Phys. Rev. Lett., 131, 076801 (2023). (featured as a news article in Science Magazine, Doi: 10.1126/science.adk0023.) 

[3] Chunyi Zhang, Shuwen Yue, Athanassios Z Panagiotopoulos, Michael L Klein*, Xifan Wu*. Dissolving salt is not equivalent to applying a pressure on water. Nat. Commun., 13, 822 (2022).

[4] Chunyi Zhang, Fujie Tang, Mohan Chen, Jianhang Xu, Linfeng Zhang, Diana Y Qiu, John P Perdew, Michael L Klein*, Xifan Wu*. Modeling liquid water by climbing up Jacob's ladder in density functional theory facilitated by using deep neural network potentials. J. Phys. Chem. B, 125, 11444–11456 (2021). (Cover Art Article)

[5] Chunyi Zhang, Linfeng Zhang, Jianhang Xu, Fujie Tang, Biswajit Santra, Xifan Wu*. Isotope effects in x-ray absorption spectra of liquid water. Phys. Rev. B, 102, 115155 (2020).

[6] Chunyi Zhang, Cui Zhang, Mohan Chen, Wei Kang*, Zhuowei Gu, Jianheng Zhao, Cangli Liu, Chengwei Sun, Ping Zhang*. Finite-temperature infrared and Raman spectra of high-pressure hydrogen from first-principles molecular dynamics. Phys. Rev. B, 98, 144301 (2018).

[7] Chunyi Zhang, Abdolhamid Akbarzadeh*, Wei Kang, Jianxiang Wang, Armin Mirabolghasemi. Nano-architected metamaterials: Carbon nanotube-based nanotrusses. Carbon, 131, 38-46 (2018).

[8] Chunyi Zhang, Wei Kang*, Jianxiang Wang. Thermal conductance of one-dimensional materials calculated with typical lattice models. Phys. Rev. E, 94, 052131 (2016).

[9] Jianhang Xu*, Chunyi Zhang*, Linfeng Zhang, Mohan Chen, Biswajit Santra, Xifan Wu. Isotope effects in molecular structures and electronic properties of liquid water via deep potential molecular dynamics based on the SCAN functional. Phys. Rev. B, 102, 214113 (2020).

[10] Fujie Tang, Zhenglu Li, Chunyi Zhang, Steven G Louie*, Roberto Car*, Diana Y Qiu*, Xifan Wu*. Many-body effects in the X-ray absorption spectra of liquid water. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., 119(20), e2201258119 (2022).