Zhang Appointed as ECE Senior Associate Chair

Ying Zhang has been appointed as the senior associate chair for the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), effective August 1, 2021. She will succeed Mary Ann Weitnauer, who has served in this position since 2016.

Zhang joined the ECE faculty in 2006 after graduating with her Ph.D. in systems engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. She began her career at the Georgia Tech Savannah campus and then moved to the Atlanta campus in 2012, where she is currently a professor and the director of the Sensors and Intelligent Systems Laboratory. Zhang also received a M.S. degree in materials engineering from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a M.S. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Massachusetts Lowell in 2001 and 2002, respectively. She earned her B.S. degree in materials science and engineering from Tongji University in 1995.

Zhang’s research interests focus on systems-level interdisciplinary problems in wireless sensor networks, Internet of Things, biomedical engineering, structural health monitoring, and intelligent monitoring and diagnostic systems. She has graduated five Ph.D. students and two M.S. students, and is currently advising five Ph.D. students.

In addition, Zhang has advised nine M.S. special problems students, 48 undergraduate researchers, and 14 capstone design teams during her career at Georgia Tech. She has published more than 130 papers in refereed journals and conference proceedings in multiple engineering disciplines. She has been an associate editor of the IEEE Sensors Journal since 2017.

Zhang is highly involved in enhancing education for both undergraduate and graduate students. As a Provost Teaching and Learning Fellow, she is working with colleagues to develop strategies that can help faculty to incorporate best practices for blended, face-to-face, and online teaching during and after the pandemic. Zhang has developed instructional materials for ECE 2040 Circuit Analysis based on Blended Learning to improve student engagement and learning experiences. In addition, she developed a special topics course, Intellectual Property for Engineers, which has been approved to be offered to both undergraduate and graduate students.

Throughout her career, Zhang has served on many school-, college-, and Institute-level committees, including the ECE Graduate Committee; ECE Undergraduate Committee; ECE Faculty Recruitment Committee; ECE Statutory Advisory Committee; the College of Engineering Reappointment, Promotion, and Tenure Committee; General Faculty Assembly Committee; and most recently as a member of the current search committee for the Steve W. Chaddick School Chair.

Zhang has received numerous awards for her commitment to excellence in both teaching and research. She received the Lockheed Dean's Excellence in Teaching Award in 2012, NSF CAREER Award in 2013, Hesburgh Award Teaching Fellow in 2017, TechConnect National Innovation Award (with Zongyang Xia) in 2017, TechConnect Defense Innovation Award (with Zongyang Xia) in 2017, Provost Teaching and Learning Fellow in 2020, and the Georgia Tech Outstanding Undergraduate Research Mentor Award (Senior Faculty) in 2021. She was honored in both 2013 and 2017 by being included in the Faces of Inclusive Excellence, a publication produced each year by the Institute Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Office at Georgia Tech.