Dr. Guochun Zhao is now a Chair Professor in the Department of Earth Sciences, the University of Hong Kong (HKU), and the Chair Professor of Changjiang Scholars Program in the Department of Geology, Northwest University (Xi’An). He earned Bachelor and Master degrees from Changchun University of Earth Sciences (now merged into Jilin University) in 1985 and 1988, respectively. Thereafter, he had worked in Changchun University of Earth Sciences until 1996 when he went to Curtin University to pursue a PhD degree. In 2000, he received his PhD degree with “Outstanding PhD Thesis Award” from Curtin University. 

Prof. Zhao’s main research fields are metamorphic petrology, Precambrian geology and supercontinents in Earth’s history. His main research findings include discoveries of two 1.95-1.85 billion years old Himalaya-type continental collisional belts, named the Khondalite Belt and the Trans-North China Orogen in the North China Craton, and he is the first person to propose that global-scale 2.0-1.8 billion years old collisional events led to the assembly of the pre-Rodinia supercontinent, later named “Columbia or Nuna”. As the Principal Investigator, he undertook a NSFC Major Project entitled “Reconstructions of East Asian continents in Pangea” in which he used geological and Paleomagnetic data to reconstruct the Paleogeographic locations of East Asian blocks from the breakup of supercontinent Rodinia at ~750 Ma to the assembly of supercontinent Pangea at 250-220 Ma. 

Since 1998, Prof. Guochun Zhao has published 350 SCI papers, cited for more than 45,000 times (h-index = 118). Professor Zhao has received many awards, prizes and honors, including State Natural Science Award (2nd Class; First Awardee; 2014), Fellow of Geological Society of America (GSA; 2014), Highly Cited Researcher (2014-2019), Outstanding Researcher Award of the University of Hong Kong (2016), 29th Khwarizmi International Award (First Class; 2016), Chair Professorship of Changjiang Scholars Program (2017), Thousand Talents Plan (Short Term; 2017), TWAS Prize in Earth, Astronomy and Space Sciences from The World Academy of Science (2018), and Member (Academician) of Chinese Academy of Science (2019). Professor Zhao is the Editor-in-Chief of Precambrian Research, a leading international journal in earth sciences.