Prior to her studies at Harvard, Ms. Zhang served as the deputy country director for China in PILnet's Beijing office. During this time, she helped manage PILnet’s China program and supported the growth of the country's public interest legal community. Previously she was litigation director for the Center for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims in Beijing. One of China's top public interest lawyers and a vocal public figure, Zhang won the SEE-TNC (The Nature Conservancy) Ecological Award in 2011. She became known as the "Erin Brockovich of China" after winning compensation for more than 1,700 villagers in a lawsuit against a heavily polluting chemical plant, and was recognized as an emerging international leader when she was selected to participate in the Yale University World Fellows Program for 2008-2009. Zhang was featured in the 2008 PBS Frontline documentary Young and Restless in China and the 2007 CNN documentary Planet in Peril.  She received an LL.B. from Wuhan University Law School and an LL.M. at the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing. As a 2005 PILnet Fellow, Zhang developed a project on access to information