Zhou Guangzhao was born on May 15, 1929, in Changsha, the capital of Hunan province. He was the 5th child of the civil engineer Zhou Fengjiu,[2] and the younger brother of biochemist/geneticist Zhou Guangyu. He graduated from Tsinghua University in 1951, and then did graduate work in theoretical physics for three years at Beijing University. He stayed at Beijing Univ. on the faculty after completing his PhD. In 1957 he was sent to the USSR by the Chinese Atomic Energy Research Institute to work at the DubnaJoint Institute for Nuclear Research.[1]