Dr. Rong Zhang earned degrees from MIT (Ph. D. in Climate Physics and Chemistry, 2001), Boston University (M. A. in Physics, 1997), and Tsinghua University (B. E. in Electronic Engineering, 1995). She is a senior scientist and head of the Ocean and Cryosphere division at NOAA/GFDL. She is also a faculty member of the AOS program at Princeton University. Her research focuses on Atlantic multidecadal variability and associated decadal predictability, the role of AMOC in many regional phenomena.