Born in March 1970, Mr. Zhou is a professor and doctoral supervisor at the School of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, Renmin University of China. He earned a Ph.D. in Economics at Fudan University and a postdoctoral degree in management at Tsinghua University. He is the chief expert of the 19th CPC National Congress-related key project sponsored by the National Social Science Fund of China (NSSFC) “Research on the Core Mechanism of Rural Revitalization” (completed), the chief expert of the NSSFC key project “Research on Social Governance and Cross-border Cooperation Mechanism of Food Safety” (in progress), and also the chief expert of China Professional-degree Case Center (CPCC), Ministry of Education (MoE) (in progress), and project leader of “Research on Building a Food Safety Governance System with Extensive Consultation, Joint Contribution, and Shared Benefits” sponsored by the Special Funds for Central Universities (in progress). He serves as an expert member of the National Public Culture Service System and a research fellow of the Bankers' Association of China. He has given lectures to the Party School of the Central Committee of CPC, Peking University, Tsinghua University, and Renmin University of China, to training programs of local governments, and to international training sessions.

He has published more than 300 papers in prestigious academic journals and conferences, including Social Sciences in China (internal journal), Journal of Financial Research, the Journal of World Economy, Qiushi, Chinese Rural Economy, China Rural Survey, Journal of Public Management, Issues in Agricultural Economy, Journal of Rural Studies, Canadian Journal of Development Studies, Modern China, and China and World Economy. He has published ten plus monographs. He has led and completed over 30 projects sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), NSSFC, MoE, and the People's Bank of China (PBoC). He has been awarded the titles of Provincial-level Excellent Teacher, Excellent Postdoctoral Researcher by Tsinghua University, Outstanding Extracurricular Tutor and Excellent Dissertation Instructor by Renmin University of China.