• Xiaodong (Shel) Zhang
  • Xiaodong (Shel) Zhang
  • Associate R&D Director, Dow Elastomers, Electrical, and Telecommunications

Dr. Xiaodong (Shel) Zhang is currently Associate R&D Director in Dow’s Wire & Cable business. 

He leads the Wire & Cable R&D organization specializing in polymer research, formulation development, application development, electrical characterization, and process R&D to develop novel solutions for the effective transmission and distribution of power, video, voice and data.

Shel joined The Dow Chemical Company in 2003 as a Senior R&D Specialist in the personal care application area. In 2007 he joined Dow Wolff Cellulosics as global R&D leader for the Food and Nutrition business and took on his current role in 2010.

Prior to joining Dow, he was a Lead Scientist at Unilever from 2000-2003 where he focused on skin care technology and worked for 3M from 1998-2000, where he developed the first radiopaque nano-composite formulation in the dental industry.

Shel received his B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from Cooper Union in New York in 1994 and his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering in the field of polymer science from University of Minnesota in 1998.

He is a member of The American Chemical Society, a board member of the Tri-State Chinese-American Chemical Society and is on the Advisory Board for the National Electric Energy Testing Research and Applications Center (NEETRAC). He has over 20 patent applications and has published 14 papers and two book chapters.