Joy Zhang

Joy Yueyue Zhang  张悦悦,  MBBS, MSc, PhD

Professor of Sociology, University of Kent
Founding Director, Centre for Global Science and Epistemic Justice (GSEJ), University of Kent 
Editors, Current Sociology monographs and SAGE Studies in International Sociology (SSIS)
Editorial Boards, Economy and Society, Critical Policy Studies, Environmental Politics
Member, Engineering Biology Public Dialogue Oversight Group, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology/Sciencewise, UK
Member, People Engagement Board, European Partnership for Personalized Medicine

Academic CV

Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/joy-zhang-kent
BlueSky: @joyzhang.bsky.social
X: @ProfJoyZhang

I’m a Chinese-born British sociologist with a first degree in medicine. My research focuses on the erosion of epistemic boundaries and the rise of cosmopolitan identities formed by changing disciplinary, geopolitical and state-society power relations. I have expertise in expanding the transnational governance of risk beyond a Western-centric approach and in aligning theoretical frameworks with real-world challenges. Conceptually, my work contributes to sociological theories of risk, cosmopolitanism, decolonisation and subaltern politics. I’ve undertaken empirical studies on emerging life sciences, food movements and environmental politics.

I have an outstanding track record of consistently delivering high quality, high impact research. My empirical research primarily focuses on relations between four major scientific powers in the world: China, India, the UK and the US. I have provided policy consultation to leading institutions in Europe and in Asia.

My research agenda has been consolidated into several landmark programmes,  including the founding of the BioGovernance Commons in 2021 and a transdisciplinary university-level research centre, the Centre for Global Science and Epistemic Justice (GSEJ) at the University of Kent in February 2022. Since its founding, GSEJ has hosted regular events that have attracted participants and speakers from 23 different countries/regions, including, a UK-India bilateral G20 meeting on biogovernance and science diplomacy in New Delhi in 2023, co-organised with the prestigious Research and Innovation System for Development Countries (RIS), a think tank of India’s Ministry of External Affairs. My policy recommendations on global biodata governance were featured in the 2024 Think7 communiqué presented to the G7 presidency. More recently, I introduced the O.D.E.SS.I. initiative—a global ‘odyssey’ for public deliberation on emerging life sciences. Rooted in five core principles—Openness, Deliberation, Enabling, Sensibility and Sensitivity, and Innovative, and through sustained engagement with colleagues and communities across both the Global North and South, O.D.E.SS.I. reimagines how ethics, public engagement, and science diplomacy can meaningfully shape the governance of life sciences.

Before joining Kent, I worked at l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) in Paris and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), where I also obtained my PhD in Sociology in 2010 and MSc in 2006. For both of my MSc and PhD degrees, I studied under the supervision of Sarah Franklin. My PhD was examined by Ulrich Beck and Christoph Rehmann-Sutter. Previous to that, I was graduated from Peking University Health Science Centre, majoring in clinical medicine.

I’ve always tried to have a flavour of different lives when I can. Before coming to the UK, I travelled to more than 20 countries with my parents and we lived in California for two years in the early 1990s. These are immensely valuable experiences. I once worked as a journalist and a columnist. I was China’s first student journalist to report on the Olympic Games (Sydney 2000). I obtained Accounting qualification issued by China’s Ministry of Finance while carrying on with my medical training. But most importantly, I’m keen on exploring artistic tools in exploring sociological questions. To date, I have had three solo photographic exhibitions (two of which were sponsored by Canon. I love being a sociologist, but if you ask me what my ‘dream job’ is, it’s being an art restorer.

I’ve obtained research grants from the Advanced Research + Invention Agency, the British Academy, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, the British Council, the Economic and Social Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, the Independent Social Research Foundation in the UK, the National Science Foundation and the Department of State in the US, as well as la Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’homme in France.