Xiaoyan Zhang is the Xinyuan Chair Professor of Finance and Associate Dean at PBC School of Finance, Tsinghua University. She received her B.A. in Economics from Peking University in 1997, and Ph.D. in Finance (with honor) from Columbia Business School in 2002. After graduation, Professor Zhang first joined the Johnson School of Management at Cornell University as an Assistant Professor of Finance, and later she worked at the Krannert School of Management at Purdue University as Duke Realty Chair Full Professor of Finance.

Professor Zhang's research focuses on fintech, quantitative investment, market regulation and international finance. Her work has been published in Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, the Review of Financial Studies and other excellent academic journals. Her article, “The Cross-Section of Volatility and Expected Returns” (with Andrew Ang, Robert Hodrick, and Yuhang Xing), was announced one of the top 10 cited papers published in Journal of Finance since 2000. Her article, "Which Shorts Are Informed", (with Ekkehart Boehmer and Charles Jones), won the BSI Gamma Foundation Award (2005) and Best Paper Award at the 16th Mitsui Finance Symposium (2009) at the University of Michigan. Besides, her research on international finance and asset management has received awards from the European Central Bank and the Q Group Research Fund.

Due to her excellence in scientific research, Professor Zhang is appointed as associate editor at Management Science, Financial Management, Journal of Banking and Journal of Empirical Finance. In 2014, Professor Zhang was named one of the “Top 40 under 40” business school professors in the world. In 2017, She was nominated as a committee member of the CSRC 17th Issuance Examination Committee, and was received major grant from China Natural Sciences Foundation. Professor Zhang now serves as Associate Dean at PBC School of Finance, Tsinghua University. She is also the Deputy Director of Tsinghua University National Institute of Financial Research and Tsinghua Fintech Research Institute. Prof. Zhang also heads the Xinyuan Fintech Research Center.

Professor Zhang enjoys teaching in financial derivatives and risk management for undergraduate, Master of Finance, Ph.D., MBA, financial engineering and executive programs. She was nominated and awarded for various teaching prizes for many times at Cornell, Purdue and Tsinghua University.