Zhengyang Wang

Welcome | 你好 | བཀྲ་ཤིས་བདེ་ལགས།།

Teinopalpus aureus in captivity, Guangxi, China. credit: Kun Qin

I am a writer and conservation biologist. In 2014 I received a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship to study butterfly farming around the world. In 2021 I received the Bowdoin Prize from Harvard University. In 2023 I received the National Geographic Society Wayfinder Award and was elected a National Geographic Explorer. In 2024 I received the Maxwell/Hanrahan Awards in Field Biology.

I graduated from Swarthmore College (B.A., Philosophy and Biology) and Harvard University (PhD., Evolutionary Biology). During graduate school I worked at the same desk occupied by Vladimir Nabokov. My dissertation focused on the evolutionary history of the insect-eating Ophiocordyceps fungus and the Tibetans who harvest them for a living.

Currently I am an Assistant Professor at Sichuan University.

Ornithoptera paradisea specimen at Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology. credit: Christian Alessandro Perez

My scientific work centers around using remote-sensing and molecular ecology tools to study insects and their interactions with humans. Among my current interests are: light detection and ranging (LiDAR), silk moth domestication, entomophagy, and trans-boundary conservation along the Himalaya.

See a list of lead-author publications here.

I pen a travel column for Bowu (博物杂志) in China. I have also written for National Geographic, Nautilus Magazine, Orion, Scientific American, and Mongabay.

See my portfolio here.

Here is my interview with Swarthmore Magazine, where I share with alumni what it is like chasing butterfly for a living.

Ornithoptera goliath scales. credit: Christian Alessandro Perez

Ornithoptera alexandrae from Popondetta, Papua New Guinea.

I was featured in Inside Shambhala, a natural history documentary about the eastern Himalaya biodiversity hotspot, broadcast nationwide in China.

Mt. Gongga glacier, Sichuan, China.

Cerapachys zhengyangwangi, a minuscule, bituminous army ant named after me.

A life-time pursuit.
Left: (eons ago) catching butterflies in the mountains of western Sichuan.
Right: (closer to the present) holding a Golden Birdwing in the rainforest of Maluku Utara.