Nan Zhang is now an Associate Professor in the School of Automation Science and Electrical Engineering, with research interests in orbital dynamics and trajectory optimization. His work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and he was selected for the China Postdoctoral Innovative Talent Support Program. He has published some papers in leading journals, including the Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics and IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, and has received multiple academic distinctions such as the Beijing Outstanding Graduate award and a National Scholarship. He is also actively involved in the international astrodynamics community: as a core member of the winning team, he claimed first place in the 11th Global Trajectory Optimization Competition (GTOC) in 2021, contributed to the organization of GTOC-12 in 2023, and in 2025 coached his team to win GTOC-13—achieving the first back-to-back championship by a Chinese team in the history of the GTOC series.