Jizhong Zhou, Ph.D.

Dr. Jizhong Zhou is a Presidential Professor in the Department of Botany and Microbiology and Director of the Institute for Environmental Genomics, University of Oklahoma (OU), Norman, OK, an Adjunct Senior Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Adjunct Professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. Dr. Zhou received a B.S. in Plant Pathology and Entomology in 1981 and an M.S. in Insect Mathematical Ecology in 1984 from Hunan Agricultural University, China. He received a Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology in 1993 from Washington State University. Before he came to the U.S. in 1989, he studied theoretical ecology and ecosystem modeling for three years at the Eco-Environmental Research Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. He worked at the Center for Microbial Ecology, Michigan State University, from 1993 to 1995 as a Postdoctoral Research Associate. Before moving to OU in 2005, he worked at Oak Ridge National Laboratory as a Staff Scientist, Senior Staff Scientist, and then Distinguished Staff Scientist for 10 years. His expertise is in molecular biology, microbial genomics, microbial ecology, molecular evolution, theoretical ecology, metagenomics, and genomic technologies, as well as array-based bioinformatics. He has pioneered the development and applications of array-based genomic technologies for environmental studies. He has authored more than 260 publications, with H-index of 43, on microbial genomics, genomic technologies, molecular biology, molecular evolution, microbial ecology, bioremediation, bioenergy, global change, bioinformatics, systems biology, and theoretical ecology. One of his papers, published in 1996, is among the 20 most cited papers in the history of Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

Dr. Zhou has received numerous awards and honors, including a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from the President of the United States in 2001, an Environmental Sciences Division Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award in 2001, a Federal Laboratory Consortium Award for Excellence in Technology Transfer in 2005, an R&D 100 Award in 2009, as well as an Alexander Hollaender Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship. He has been named an Overseas Changjiang Scholar by the Chinese Ministry of Education, an Outstanding Overseas Young Scientist by the Chinese National Science Foundation, an Outstanding Asian American in 2009, and Qianren (One Thousand Talent Program, Class B) Scholar in 2010. He has held guest professorships in several other top Chinese institutions and universities. In 2009, he was specially invited by the Chinese Government to attend the 60th Anniversary Ceremony as a member of the Overseas Delegation, which was received by the Chinese President, Premier, and other top leaders. He is an Editor for Applied and Environmental Microbiology and mBio, a new ASM integrative journal. He has served as a member of the Editorial Boards of two leading microbial ecology journals, The ISME Journal and Environmental Microbiology. He is an US Ambassador to the International Society of Microbial Ecology. He has chaired three International Conferences on Microbial Genomes and has served on numerous grant, fellowship, and award review panels for the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the American Society for Microbiology, and the American Academy of Microbiology. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.