Portrait of Anao Zhang in a black shirt and striped tie foregrounded against the backdrop of nature

Anao Zhang, MSW’12

  • Alum, MSW Program
  • Associate Professor, University of Michigan
  • Anao Zhang, PhD, LCSW, OSW-C, ACBT, is an Associate Professor of Social Work at the University of Michigan and the Clinical Research Director at the Michigan Medicine Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) Oncology Program. A psycho-oncologist by training, Dr. Zhang’s research attends to the biopsychosocial wellness of individuals impacted by cancer, especially those diagnosed during adolescence and young adulthood.

    As a mid-career oncology social work researcher, Dr. Zhang has contributed to over 80 peer-reviewed journal articles and received nearly $2 million in research funding. Dr. Zhang’s research critically addresses health equity in the AYA cancer population. His recent study funded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), for example, evaluates treatment access barriers of cancer care among minoritized AYAs with cancer.

    Dr. Zhang is a University of Michigan Interprofessional Leadership Fellow and has received scholarships from several competitive federally-funded training programs, such as the Harvard Medical School Center for Palliative Care. Most recently, Dr. Zhang was selected for the Cambia Health Foundation Sojourns Leadership Program — the country’s most prestigious fellowship program in palliative care leadership. In 2024, he received the Avery D. Weisman & J. William Worden Award for New Investigators from the American Psychosocial Oncology Society — the nation’s largest interprofessional society of psychosocial oncology. Dr. Zhang received his MSW from Penn’s School of Social Policy & Practice and his PhD from The University of Texas at Austin, where he also completed a graduate portfolio program in applied statistical modeling.