Her research focuses on modern Chinese history and China's current global challenges. Her first project is a comparative and transnational inquiry of intellectual and cultural history focused on Chinese leftism and anti-colonialism in Southeast Asia from 1938 to 1948. She has a second project on feminism and everyday life in post-socialist China, which focuses on feminism in entrepreneurship, reproductive labor, and social welfare. Her teaching interests at Duke Kunshan include global China studies and Chinese history, as well areas related to global health, gender and sexuality, and media and art.
Zhu has a B.A. and M.A. in history from Shandong University and a Ph.D. in history from New York University. She taught for four years at Wabash College, Indiana, and since 2016 has been a Global Perspectives on Society Fellow at NYU Shanghai.