Dr. Cheng Zhang is an assistant professor in Civil Engineering at Rowan University. Prior to joining Rowan in January 2025, he was a research associate in the joint Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at Princeton University and NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL). Dr. Zhang earned a PhD in Civil Engineering from the Center for Applied Coastal Research at the University of Delaware. His research is centered on coastal hazards and oceanography, with a primary focus on developing cutting-edge, AI-enhanced deterministic and probabilistic tools to assess and mitigate risks from nature hazards in coastal communities. Dr. Zhang is a major contributor to various well-established open-source models, including the ocean circulation model MOM6, 3D non-hydrostatic wave model NHWAVE, and 2D phase resolving wave model FUNWAVE.