Rate My Professor Mengjie Zhang

Professor Mengjie Zhang is the Professor of Computer Science in the Faculty of Engineering at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He received his Bachelor of Engineering (BE) in 1989 and Master of Engineering (ME) in 1992 from Agricultural University of Hebei, Baoding, China, and his PhD in Computer Science in 2000 from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University, Melbourne, Australia. He has been at Victoria University of Wellington since 2000, advancing from lecturer and senior lecturer to Associate Professor/Reader, and Professor since 2011. Since 1 June 2023, he is the Director of the Centre for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (Te Whiri Kawe) and leads the Evolutionary Computation and Machine Learning Research Group. Previously, from 2014 to 2023, he served as Associate Dean (Research and Innovation) for the Faculty of Engineering and Chair of the Faculty Research Committee. He also serves as a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for Complexica.

Professor Zhang's research lies in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Big Data, with specializations in evolutionary machine learning, genetic programming, evolutionary computation, automated deep learning, neural networks, transfer learning, multi-task learning, domain adaptation, computer vision, image analysis, scheduling, planning, combinatorial optimisation, statistical/AI modelling, neuro-symbolic systems, multi-modal learning, generative AI, large language models, feature selection/construction, and explainable/interpretable AI. These are applied to primary industry, climate change, (bio)medical/health, and high-tech/high-value manufacturing. A Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand (FRSNZ), Engineering New Zealand (FEngNZ), and the IEEE (FIEEE), and an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer, he has earned the EvoStar/SPECIES Award for Outstanding Contribution to Evolutionary Computation in Europe (2023), Australasian Artificial Intelligence Distinguished Research Contribution Award (2024), and ACM SIGEVO Outstanding Contribution Award (2025). He ranks in the top five (No. 2) world genetic programming researchers and is a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher in Computer Science (2023, 2024). With over 900 refereed publications cited more than 40,000 times on Google Scholar, and over 40 million dollars in research grants since 2005 from NZ Government funds (Marsden, MBIE), international sources (ARC Australia, NSFC China), and industry, Professor Zhang has profoundly influenced his field.