Dr. Yongfeng Zhang is an Associate Professor and Associate Chair for Undergraduate Studies in the Nuclear Engineering and Engineering Physics Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He earned his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and his undergraduate and master’s degrees from the University of Science and Technology of China, before spending nearly a decade as a staff scientist and group lead at Idaho National Laboratory, where he led the Computational Microstructure Science Group. His research focuses on using computational methods to understand and design materials capable of withstanding extreme environments, with particular emphasis on the thermodynamics and kinetics of crystal defects, irradiation behavior of nuclear fuels and structural materials, fracture and plasticity, and corrosion in molten salt systems. With over 124 peer-reviewed journal publications, his work spans a wide range of materials systems relevant to both current and advanced reactor designs, including uranium fuels, TRISO particles, accident-tolerant cladding alloys, and complex concentrated alloys.
Dr. Zhang is an active leader in the nuclear materials research community, serving on the TMS Nuclear Materials Committee as Vice Chair and Chair, as an executive member of the ANS Materials Science and Technology Division, and as an associate editor for Frontiers in Materials and Frontiers in Nuclear Engineering. He has led or co-led numerous funded projects through DOE’s Nuclear Energy University Programs, the NRC, the Office of Science Basic Energy Sciences program, and INL’s Laboratory Directed Research and Development program, covering topics ranging from reactor pressure vessel steel embrittlement to molten salt corrosion mechanisms to the mechanical behavior of TRISO fuel particle buffer layers. Recognized multiple times with INL’s Exceptional Contribution Program Award and the Laboratory Director’s Award for Leadership, he brings a deeply interdisciplinary perspective to materials challenges at the frontier of nuclear energy research.