Tianpeng was born and raised in Hubei Province, China. Dr. Zhang received his B.A. (2012) and Ph.D. (2017) from the Sun Yat-Sen (Zhongshan) University, Guangzhou, China. In Dr. Yong Zhao's lab, he developed his interest in aging and carcinogenesis. He established novel methodologies to study telomere maintenance mechanisms, including resolution of telomere replication stress, regulation of telomere damage responses, and driving forces of Alternative Lengthening of Telomeres (ALT) mechanisms. In 2017, Tianpeng joined Dr. Roger Greenberg's lab at the School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania as a Postdoctoral Researcher. He continued his research interest in understanding the fundamental question of how ALT is initiated and maintained. In 2024, after the PhD and Postdoctoral training, Tianpeng established his independent research group at the Department of Radiation Oncology and Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Genetics, University of Virginia School of Medicine.  Tianpeng is dedicated to studying genome integrity maintenance within repetitive sequences, and revealing their associated etiology and therapeutic vulnerabilities. Tianpeng received the Forbeck Scholar for William Guy Forbeck Research Foundation in 2019; AFCRI Funded Postdoctoral Fellowship from the University of Pennsylvania in 2022; and Trailblazers of Tomorrow National Postdoctoral Scholars from the University of Texas at Austin in 2024. Dr. Zhang's research is supported by UVASOM, UVACCC, and NIGMS-MIRA.