Yu Zhang received her Ph.D. in Computer Science at Texas A&M University in 2005. She is currently Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at St. John's University. Dr. Zhang's research falls within Agent-Based Modeling and Simulation. She is in the editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Agent Technologies and Systems, the editor-in-chief of the Newsletter of the Society for Modeling & Simulation International, and an associate editor of the SCS Transactions of Simulation.

Dr. Zhang served as the Program Co-Chair of the Agent Directed Simulation Symposium in the SCS SpringSim Multi-Conference from 2009 to 2013. From 2005-2011, she was Program Chair of the IEEE Women In Engineering Central Texas Chapter (CTC), Program Co-Chair of the IEEE SMC Society CTC, and Vice Chair of the IEEE Computer Society CTC. She received the 2009 SCS Service Recognition, 2008 Trinity Distinguish Junior Faculty Award, 2007 IEEE CTC Service Recognition, and Best Paper Award of the 2008 IEEE Region 5 Student Paper Competition.