Dr Jenny Zhang is an Assistant Professor in Materials Chemistry and Anne Logue College Lecturer at the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge. She specialises in photosynthesis, bioenergetics, and electrochemistry.

Jenny earned her PhD in bioinorganic chemistry from the University of Sydney, with a research stint at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Later, she joined Cambridge as a Marie Curie Incoming International Fellow to explore how biocatalysts could be harnessed to produce solar fuels—helping to shape the emerging field of semi-artificial photosynthesis.

Since establishing her research group in 2018 with a BBSRC David Phillips Fellowship, Jenny is pioneering approaches that combine biological and synthetic materials to develop new biotechnologies for generating clean energy and combating biofouling.

In 2023, she was awarded a prestigious European Research Council Consolidator Grant to develop new strategies for enhancing energy exchange between biological and non-biological systems. Recently, she was awarded a highly sought after European Innovation Council Pathfinder Consortium grant, where she will be coordinator for an international project for producing ‘solar foods’.

Jenny’s interdisciplinary team operates at the crossroads of electrochemistry, synthetic biology, chemical biology, materials science, physics, and engineering. Current projects include the re-wiring of photosynthesis for efficient solar energy conversion, developing electrochemical tools to study coral bleaching, and fighting pathogenic biofilms.