Dr. Li Zhang

Assistant Specialist
521 Social Science Tower
li.zhang@uci.edu

Professional Bio

Dr. Li Zhang is a researcher in the Department of Global and International Studies of the University of California Irvine. She holds a PhD in Development Studies from the China Agricultural University, and was previously visiting fellow at Cornell University’s Department of Global Development, and assistant professor of development sociology at Henan Agricultural University. She uses ethnographic methods, surveys, and digital archives to examine food safety, security, and sovereignty, gender, race/ethnicity, and indigeneity, health and environmental justice, and climate change resilience and adaptation, focusing on China and its global connections. She is Co-PI of a USDA-funded national-level study on the impacts of the current pandemic on food supply chains, and author The Origins of COVID-19: China and Global Capitalism  (Stanford University Press, 2021).