Prof. Jie Zhang is the Founder and Chairman of GeoTomo, a geophysical exploration company in Houston, CEO of Cello Therapeutics Inc., a biomedical company in San Diego, and Chair Professor at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC). Prof. Jie Zhang received his Ph.D. in Geophysics from MIT in 1996, M.S. in Geophysics from Penn State in 1991, and B.S. in Geophysics from USTC in 1986.

He previously worked for MIT, Shell, USGS, and Blackhawk Geometrics. He then founded or co-founded six high-tech companies. From 2009, Prof. Jie Zhang was teaching geophysics at MIT as a lecturing professor, then at Stanford as a visiting professor, and joined USTC in 2011. He was the Founding Director of Stanford-USTC-MIT (SUM) Joint Program.

Prof. Jie Zhang received STAR Award from US EPA in 1995; Antarctic Exploration Award from US NSF in 1996, Reginald Fessenden Award in 2012, Outstanding Educator Award in 2015, and Honorary Lecturer Award in 2016 from the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG). He was ranked first among 100 China Most Creative People in 2015 by the US magazine “Fast Company.”

In 2020, he was inducted as a member of the United States National Academy of Engineering (NAE), and also became SEG Life Member. He served in the MIT EAPS Visiting Committee from 2011 to 2019, and Vice President of SEG from 2015 to 2017. He has published over 200 technical papers in science and technology.