Contact Info
Zhengzhen’s research and teaching at MIT is focused on real estate sustainability, net zero carbon real estate investment, healthy buildings and digital technology innovation. Zhengzhen teaches graduate and undergraduate courses at the MIT Center for Real Estate, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, and the Sloan School of Management. She currently co-teaches “Sustainable Real Estate: Economics and Business” – a core course of the Master of Science in Real Estate Development program.
She publishes in the Journal of International Real Estate Review, Journal of Sustainable Real Estate, and is the editor and co-author of “Towards Urban Vibrancy: Patterns and Practices of Asia’s New Cities” (MIT SA+P Press, 2020). She has co-founded and led three research labs since joining MIT in 2015: STL Real Estate Entrepreneurship lab, China Future City Lab and Sustainable Urbanization Lab. She was the director of MIT-Tsinghua Future City Innovation, MIT’s first entrepreneurship education program with a focus on urban tech in fast urbanizing China.
Zhengzhen is a member of AFIRE (Association For International Real Estate Investors) and is on Advisory Council of Massachusetts Housing and Climate Innovation Center. Zhengzhen also advises private equity real estate firms on sustainability and digital strategy.
Before joining MIT, Zhengzhen was an urban planner and urban designer with extensive practice in both the public and private sector in China, Singapore, UK and Canada. She received her bachelor’s degree from the Department of Urban Planning at Shanghai Tongji University and her masters degree from the Department of Architecture at the National University of Singapore.
