Zen Zheng serves as Director of Communications at the Houston Community College System and was also a research fellow at the University of Houston Asian American Studies Center until recently.

He is a former award-winning journalist with a distinguished career spanning more than two decades across wire service, print, broadcast and digital media, including a 12-year tenure at the Houston Chronicle. During his time at the daily, Zheng excelled as an editor, reporter, feature writer and blogger covering numerous beats from community, immigration and government to culture, education and lifestyle.

Since 2012, Zheng has made significant contributions to municipal, healthcare and higher education organizations through communications, marketing, public relations and community engagement.

Zheng is the principal author of The Significance of Chinatown Development to a Multicultural America: An Exploration of the Houston Chinatowns, published and globally distributed by the UK-based scholarly press Emerald Publishing in 2023. Distilling 16 years of research, this seminal book is the first to offer a panoramic history of Houston’s two distinct Chinese American neighborhoods and their evolution within a multicultural context.