Can Zhang is an Assistant Professor in the Operations Management area at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. His research studies socially responsible operations with a focus on resource limited settings. Specifically, his current research spans in two areas: 1) healthcare supply chains (particularly in underserved regions), and 2) scarce resource allocation in nonprofit and public sectors. More recently, he also started working on smallholder agricultural supply chains in emerging economies. A common theme of his research is to develop analytical models to study the unique challenges and trade-offs involved in serving the underserved communities.  In his research, he works closely with industry collaborators to motivate research questions from real-world challenges and data. He also aims to deliver implementable solutions to make a practical impact. 

His work has won multiple research awards, including the first place for the 2019 MSOM Award for Responsible Research in OM, the 2017 MSOM Practice-Based Competition, the 2017 MSOM Student Paper Competition, and the 2017 INFORMS Doing Good with Good OR Student Paper Competition, honorable mention for the 2019 INFORMS George B. Dantzig Dissertation Award, and a finalist for the 2017 INFORMS Franz Edelman Award and the 2015 INFORMS George Nicholson Student Paper Competition.

At Fuqua, Prof. Zhang teaches Operations Management for the Daytime MBA program. Prior to joining Fuqua, he received a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology and a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Tsinghua University.