Dr Wenjing (Wendee) Zhang is a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Planning. Her research examines the implications of planning for both the natural and built environments, with a particular focus on residents’ well-being in urban contexts. Her work aims to provide evidence to support the development of healthier and more sustainable cities by promoting nature as an essential urban infrastructure. She employs a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, with particular expertise in geospatial analysis, to investigate how land use, environmental exposures, and climate-related risks shape health outcomes across diverse population groups.

Before joining the University of Waikato, Wendee was a Postdoctoral Researcher in Nature, Human Health and Wellbeing at the University of Oxford, where she worked with the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery and the Flourishing and Wellbeing Theme of the Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre. Her research examined the health and wellbeing co-benefits from urban green and blue spaces, with a particular focus on mental health, environmental exposure, and inequalities in access to nature.

Wendee completed her PhD in Geography at the University of Melbourne in 2022. Her doctoral research explored sustainability transitions in urban planning, focusing on environmental policy and urban water management and examining the role of hydraulic missions in transitions towards water sustainability.

Across her research, Wendee has worked on topics including urban green and blue spaces,  mental health and wellbeing, urban water management, environmental policy, and carbon emissions associated with urban land-cover change. Her current research brings these interests together to understand how evidence on environment and health can inform urban planning and policy and contribute to healthier, more sustainable, and more equitable communities in United Kingdom, China, Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally.