Zhen Zhou was born in Shandong, China. After he received his BSc (applied chemistry, in 1994) and PhD (inorganic chemistry, in 1999) at Nankai University, China, he joined the faculty at Nankai University as a lecturer in 1999. Two years later, he began to work in Nagoya University, Japan as a JSPS postdoctoral fellow, and then he continued his research at EcoTopia Institute, Nagoya University for another two years. In 2005, he returned to Nankai University as an associate professor. In 2011, he was promoted as a full professor. In 2014, he was appointed as Director of Institute of New Energy Material Chemistry, Nankai University. His main research interest is design, preparation and application of advanced materials for energy storage and conversion. So far, he has published over 260 scientific papers, 10 patents, and 5 book chapters. All the papers have been cited ~15000 times and he has a personal h-index of 68. In 2018, he was selected as Highly Cited Researchers by Clarivate Analytics. He now serves as Associate Editor for J. Mater. Chem. A and Green Energy Environ., and Editor-in-Chief of Current Graphene Science.