Zhou Guangzhao, born on May 15, 1929 in Ningxiang City, Hunan Province, was a theoretical and particle physicist. He was an academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences, a foreign academician of the National Academy of Sciences and a foreign member of the Royal Society. He won the medal of Two Bombs, One Satellite (an early nuclear and space project of the PRC), a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics, honorary president of China Association for Science and Technology, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the Ninth National People's Congress, former president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

In 1951, Zhou Guangzhao graduated from Tsinghua University and then entered the Research Institute of Peking University. He joined the Communist Party of China in 1952. In 1954, he graduated from Peking University with a master's degree and then taught at Peking University. From 1957 to 1960, he was an intermediate researcher at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Soviet Union. From 1961 to 1964, he served as deputy director, head of the Theoretical Department of Nuclear Weapons Research Institute, Ministry of Nuclear Industry, chief engineer of the 9th Bureau of the Ministry of Nuclear Industry, and director of the 9th Institute of the Second Machinery Industry. In 1979, he was a researcher at the Institute of Theoretical Physics Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 1980, he was selected as a member (academician) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.