Hello! I am Qian Zhang. I am an Associate Research Scientist with the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES) at the USEPA Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) . Within the CBP's Scientific, Technical Assessment and Reporting (STAR) team, my main role is to collaborate with scientists and managers in the CBP Partnership to analyze monitoring data and explore the temporal and spatial patterns and trends of water quality in Chesapeake Bay and its watershed, which are critical to defining the success of the Bay restoration effort toward meeting the goals of the 2014 Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement and to making science-based management decisions in the foreseeable future.

I am particularly interested in applying scientific principles and statistical approaches to examine nutrient and sediment loads from watersheds and better understand their drivers and impacts along the land-river-estuary continuum. My specific research interests include: (1) quantifying riverine water-quality loads and trends; (2) improving statistical methods for riverine water-quality load and trend estimation; (3) disentangling natural and anthropogenic controls of riverine water-quality loads and trends; and (4) understanding impacts of riverine loads on receiving waters. As a Monitoring Data Analyst at CBP, I am committed to developing new approaches to integrate, analyze, and visualize complex environmental data toward extracting and communicating meaningful patterns. 

In 2016, I obtained my Ph.D degree in the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. My Ph.D dissertation is entitled as "Quantifying Nutrient and Sediment Export from the Chesapeake Bay Watershed: Retrospective Analyses and Method Improvements." Under the advisement of Prof. Bill Ball, my dissertation focused on applying scientific principles and statistical approaches to quantify nutrient and sediment export from the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Upon completion of my Ph.D, I received the Innovyze Excellence in Computational Hydraulics / Hydrology Award from the American Academy of Environmental Engineers and Scientists (AAEES), which was jointly selected with the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP).

Prior to my doctoral research, I obtained two master of science (MSE) degrees from the Johns Hopkins University, one in environmental engineering  (Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering) and the other in statistics (Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics). I obtained my bachelor degree in environmental engineering at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. 

For more information, please click the headers or contact me at qzhang@chesapeakebay.net or qzhang@umces.edu.