Dr. Dzeng is a sociologist and hospitalist physician conducting research at the nexus of sociology, medical ethics, palliative care, health disparities, and human-centered design. She is an Associate Professor "In Residence" at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) in the Division of Hospital Medicine and Affiliated Faculty in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences and the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies. She is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Cicely Saunders Institute at King's College London.

Her research program focuses on using sociological and human centered design methods to understand how institutional cultures and policies influence clinical practice patterns and how to change institutional culture to improve the quality of care. She conducts large-scale comparative ethnographic interview studies in the United States and the United Kingdom to understand the influence of institutional cultures and policies on clinicians’ ethical frameworks, communication practices, and clinical practice patterns around end-of-life care. A particular area of interest is around the influence of neoliberalism and specifically the culture and ethical implications of neoliberalism on an institution's ethical priorities around end-of-life care.