Dr. Wendong Zhang is an assistant professor in the Department of Economics at Iowa State University since August 2015. His research seeks to better understand U.S. farmland market, agricultural water conservation, and Chinese agriculture. Dr. Zhang is also affiliated with Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD), where he co-founded the new ISU China Ag center jointly with Dr. Dermot Hayes in collaboration with Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in 2017.

Dr. Zhang is the leading researcher of the Iowa Land Value Survey, the Iowa Farmland Ownership and Tenure Survey, as well as the Iowa Lakes Survey. He also serves as the Academic Vice President for ASFMRA Iowa Chapter and leads the annual ISU Soil Management and Land Valuation (SMLV) Conference.

Dr. Zhang received his Ph.D. in Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics from the Ohio State University in July 2015, and he also hold a BSc in Environmental Science from Fudan University in China.