* Founding Director, the Nevada Center for Astrophysics, UNLV, 1/2022 -
* Distinguished Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy, UNLV, 7/2020 -
* Associate Dean for Research, College of Sciences, UNLV, 1/2018 - 12/2021
* Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy, UNLV, 7/2010 -
* Associate Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy, UNLV, 7/2008 - 6/2010
* Assistant Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy, UNLV, 7/2004 - 6/2008
* Research associate, Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, Pennsylvania State
University, 7/2000 - 6/2004
* National Research Council (NRC) research associate, Laboratory of High Energy
Astrophysics, Code 661, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, 11/1998 - 6/2000
* Lecturer and postdoctoral fellow, Peking University, Beijing, P. R. China, 1/1997-10/1998
* Visiting scientist, Australia Telescope National Facility (ATNF), CSIRO, and Swinburne
University of Technology, Australia, 5-8/1998
* Ph.D. in Astrophysics, Peking University, 1997
* M.S. in Astrophysics, Peking University, 1994
* B.S. in Geophysics, Peking University, 1991
* 2024: Nevada Regents' Researcher Awards, Distinguished Career.
* 2022: Highly ranked scholar (ranked #4 among 19 scholars who received the honor) in Astronomy during prior 5 years according to ScholarGPS.
* 2022: Highly ranked scholar (ranked #4 among 27 scholars who received the honor) in Gamma Ray during lifetime according to ScholarGPS.
* 2020: Finalist for the Association of American Publisher's PROSE (Professional and Scholarly Excellence) Award in the Cosmology and Astronomy category.
* 2020: Corresponding author of one of the three papers (Lin et al. 2020, Nature, 587, 63-65) selected as #4 of the "Top Ten Breakthrough of the Year" in 2020 by the Science magazine and one of the "Ten Remarkable Discoveries from 2020" by the Nature magazine.
* 2020: UNLV Distinguished Professor Award.
* 2014: Elected fellow, American Physical Society (APS). Citation: "For his significant
scientific contributions to the understanding of the physical mechanisms of high-energy
astrophysical sources, especially the prompt emission and afterglows of cosmological
gamma-ray bursts".
* 2012: Barrick Distinguished Scholar Award, UNLV.
* 2009: Thomson Reuters Science Watch analysis: Total number of citations and total number
of papers ranked #11 and #6 in the period 1999-2008 in the field of gamma-ray bursts; 6
papers identified in the top 20 most cited papers in 2007-2008; 3 first-author papers
identified as the core papers of Research Front Map of Gamma-Ray Bursts".
* 2009: College of Sciences Distinguished Researcher Award, UNLV.
* 2007: First author of the "New Hot Paper" in the field of Space Science identified by
Essential Science Indicators in July 2007 (Zhang et al. 2006, ApJ, 642, 354).
* 2007: Bruno Rossi Prize, High Energy Astrophysics Division of American Astronomical
Society, as a Swift team member (honored to Neil Gehrels and the NASA Swift mission team).
* 2005: Discovery of first afterglow of short duration GRBs (Gehrels, Sarazin, O'Brien, Zhang
and 73 coauthors, 2005, Nature, 437, 851) ranked #4 Breakthrough of Year 2005 by the
Science Magazine.
* 1998-2000: National Research Council (NRC) Research Associate Fellowship.
* Transient astrophysics (Gamma-ray bursts, fast radio bursts, and electromagnetic
counterparts of gravitational waves);
* Relativistic jet physics and accretion physics and applications to black holes of all scales and
neutron stars of all species;
* Multi-wavelength, multi-messenger astrophysics (cosmic rays, neutrinos and gravitational
waves) astrophysics;
* Broad research interest in other disciplines in astrophysics (planetary sciences, dark matter,
cosmology, etc.).
* > 580 (> 60 first-author) scientific papers published in refereed
professional journals, including high-impact journals such as Nature (21), Science (5), Nature Physics (1), Nature Astronomy (9), Nature Communications (3), Science Advances (1), Reviews of Modern Physics (1), and Physics Reports (1). > 1000 (> 110 first-author) entries of publications in Astrophysical Data Service (ADS).
* PI of >20 funded research by NASA and NSF.
* > 44,000 (ADS) or > 50,000 (Google Scholar) citations, with a citation index h=110 (ADS) or h=122 (Google Scholar).
* Delivered >260 professional talks (including >200 invited talks) in conferences or institutional colloquia/seminars.
* Leading an active research group at UNLV that trained more than 50 long-term members (PhD students, MS students, undergraduate students, postdocs, visiting students and scholars).
* Collaborating with > 100 scientists from > 15 countries (USA, China, UK, Italy,
France, Germany, Spain, Australia, Israel, Poland, Japan, Mexico, Sweden, Korea, Russia,
among others.
* Co-Investigator or affiliated member of many current or upcoming US or international space missions or
telescope collaborations (Swift, FAST, Einstein Probe, SVOM, StarBurst, THESEUS, etc.).
* Research widely reported in the media.
* Refereed >300 papers for all major professional journals in astrophysics/physics.
* Peer review panelist or reviewer for NASA, NSF, and several foreign funding agencies.
* Associate editor: Journal of High Energy Astrophysics; Frontiers of Physics.
* SOC chair, co-chair, or member of >30 international professional conferences.
* Numerous university/college/departmental services at UNLV