Born in Nanjing, east China's Jiangsu Province, in 1936, Zhang graduated from Moscow University in 1960 and received her Ph.D. from Stockholm University in 1982. She has since been a research professor at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

She was the director of the institute from 1983 to 1991, president of the International Paleontological Association from 1992 to 1996, and president of the Paleontological Society of China from 1993 to 1997. In 1991, she was elected as an academician of CAS.

Zhang has spent decades examining fish fossils, some of which date back to the Devonian period, some 400 million years ago. Her discoveries over the past 50 years have helped explain the causes and timeframe for evolving features in certain species of fish.

The Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation is a Chinese non-governmental organization founded in Hong Kong in 1994.