Dr Danni Zhang BSc, MSc, PhD
Research fellow, EDO officer
Dr Danni Zhang is a quantitative and qualitative researcher in the Product Returns Group within the Department of Decision Analytics and Risk, Southampton Business School at the University of Southampton.
Danni holds a BSc (First Class) in Accounting and Finance from the University of Leeds, and an MSc in Accounting and Finance from the University of Warwick. In 2016, she joined Southampton Business School as a doctoral candidate (Centre for Risk Research Group) and was awarded a Doctoral degree in 2020. Her PhD thesis is titled ‘Understanding and improving how communication formats influence lay comprehension of financial information’.
During her candidature, she has been awarded of Doctoral College 2019 Director’s Award, and Doctoral College 2018 Director’s Award, within the theme of Enterprise (University of Southampton). She worked as a coordinator for the Small Business Clinic (University of Southampton) for two years. Danni also holds the Associate Fellow of The Higher Education Academy (AFHEA) in November 2019.
Currently, Dr Danni Zhang is mainly working on a project on product returns and fraud that is led by Dr Regina (Gina) Frei. This project (£281k funding) is funded by the Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC), as part of UK Research and Innovation’s rapid response to Covid-19. This research aims to deeply understand product returns and related fraud in a post-pandemic world and develop a returns forecasting tool with mitigation strategies for retailers. She is also a part-time officer working for the Education Development Office (EDO) at Business School.
Apart from research activities, Danni has committed a number of teaching, MSc supervision, and administration activities at the University of Southampton since 2017.