He has academia and industry combined research experience on 3G/4G/5G wireless communications and its applications to IoT, Blockchain, automation, data privacy and security. He is the PI or a Co-I of multi-million research projects funded by UKRI, DCMS, Scottish government and industry. His 14 international patents are granted in 30+ countries including USA/UK/EU/China/Japan etc, plus 5 filed patents. He has 100+ peer-reviewed publications, including 3 books, 50+ journal papers (95%+ are published in SJR Q1 journals), 50+ conference papers and book chapters.

Dr Zhang is an associate editor of IEEE Internet of Things (IoT) Journal, IEEE Wireless Communications Letters and Digital Communications and Networks. He is a Full College member of EPSRC and Senior Member of IEEE. He received the IEEE ICC TAOS Best Paper Award 2019. Dr. Lei Zhang was Technical Program Chair for 5th International Conference on UCET 2020, Publication and Registration Chair of IEEE SAM 2018, Co-chair of Cyber-C 2019 Blockchain workshop.