Dr. Mingyu Zhang is an epidemiologist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School. He is also an affiliated faculty member of the Harvard Chan-NIEHS Center for Environmental Health and the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment (C-CHANGE). Previously, Dr. Zhang served as a Research Fellow in the Department of Population Medicine at Harvard Medical School and as a Biostatistician at the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Data Analysis Center at Johns Hopkins University. The primary focus of Dr. Zhang’s lab is to understand how environmental and nutritional factors influence disease risk and shape cardiometabolic health across the life course. He is the Principal Investigator (PI) of grants from the American Heart Association (AHA) and the American Diabetes Association (ADA), and his lab’s research also receives support through the NIH-funded ECHO program.
Dr. Zhang has extensive experience leading and implementing analyses of observational studies and randomized controlled trials. He has authored over 70 publications in high-impact journals and is nationally recognized for his research on the effects of air pollution, toxic metals, and PFAS exposures on children’s cardiometabolic health. He also serves or has served as a Co-Investigator in the ECHO Study of Health Inequities and Neighborhood Environments (ECHO Boston), the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Ancillary Study, and the Project Viva pre-birth cohort. Dr. Zhang serves as an Associate Editor for the journal Trials and as a Senior Editorial Consultant for the American Journal of Hypertension. He has also served as a grant reviewer for funding organizations including the AHA, the ADA, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
Dr. Zhang is an elected Fellow of the American Heart Association (FAHA) and a member of the Delta Omega Public Health Honor Society. He has received honors including the AHA Jeremiah and Rose Stamler Research Award and the Scott Grundy Fellowship Award for Excellence in Metabolism Research. His research and expert commentary have been featured in major media outlets such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, Reuters, CNN, and ABC News.
Recent honors
- American Diabetes Association Early Career Abstract Award, 2025
- General Medicine Best Papers Award, 2024
Education and training
- Postdoctoral Fellowship, Developmental and Life-Course Epidemiology, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, 2023
- PhD, Environmental Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins University, 2022
- Certificate, Clinical Trials, Johns Hopkins University, 2020
- MHS, Cardiovascular and Clinical Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins University, 2018
- BS, Experimental Medical Sciences, Peking University, 2016
- BEcon, Economics, Peking University, 2016
