Interests and expertise

I am the Project and Knowledge Exchange Lead for the Agricultural Resilience Impact and Innovation Hub (AgRIIH) supported by the Strategic Innovation fund, aiming to build partnerships with industry to develop impactful interdisciplinary research and innovation that transforms our agricultural systems for a more resilient future.

My research focuses on food system transformation, resilience, and sustainability, with particular interest and expertise in:

• Investigating food system resilience through an actor-based lens, exploring how individual and collective efforts interact with systemic resilience in dynamic contexts.
• Conducting metric-based assessments of the health, environmental, social, and economic outcomes and potential trade-offs of transformative practices and innovations within food systems.

Background

Prior to joining the Department of Biology, I have been a postdoctoral researcher in the Food Systems Transformation Group at the Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford, where I am currently contributing to the Co-Centre for Sustainable Food Systems project. My previous work includes the UKRI-funded BeanMeals project, in which I assessed the health, environmental, and enterprise impacts of scaling up UK-grown beans in healthy meals, employing both qualitative and quantitative methods.

My PhD from Lancaster University explored food system resilience through an actor-based lens, examining how actors at different levels respond to disruptions, transformations, and governance challenges, and how these interactions influence systemic resilience. At Lancaster, I also served as a research assistant and project coordinator for the JPI Urban-funded SIRIUS (Sustainable, Innovative, Resilient, and Interconnected Urban Food System) project.

I also hold a BA in Public Administration from Nanjing University and an MA in International Relations–Energy, Resources, and Environment from Johns Hopkins University and Nanjing University. My professional experience spans work with NGOs such as the US-China Business Council, Clean Air Asia, and the World Agricultural Heritage Foundation.

Selected Publications

• Ingram, John, et al. “Fork to farm: reverse engineering a food system.” (accepted in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences)
• Zhang, Jing, L. X. Liu, and D. Tyfield. “Food system resilience and governance: a pork story in China.” Transforming food systems: ethics, innovation and responsibility. Wageningen Academic Publishers, 2022. 95-100.
• Zhang, Jing, L. X. Liu, and D. Tyfield. “Organisational resilience and COVID lockdown: a multi-case study from restaurants in Wuhan, China.” Transforming food systems: ethics, innovation and responsibility. Wageningen Academic Publishers, 2022. 101-106.
• Ali, Mustafa, et al. “Assessing pre-pandemic carbon footprint of diet transitions in UK nations and regions.” International Journal of Production Research (2022): 1-16.
• Ali, Mustafa, Lingxuan Liu, and Jing Zhang. “Exploring spatio-temporal variations in environmental impacts from eating out in the United Kingdom.” Science of The Total Environment 801 (2021): 149540.
• Zhang, Jing, Roger Raufer, and Lingxuan Liu. “Solar home systems for clean cooking: A cost–health benefit analysis of lower-middle-income countries in Southeast Asia.” Sustainability 12.9 (2020): 3909