Peter Zhou is Assistant University Librarian and Director of C. V. Starr East Asian Library at the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to his appointment in Berkeley, he served as the Head of East Asian Library and Adjunct Associate Professor in University of Pittsburgh, and East Asian Librarian and Adjunct Assistant Professor at University of Iowa. Peter was instrumental in fundraising and construction of the $52 million C.V. Starr East Asian Library in Berkeley, the first freestanding building built expressly for an East Asian library in North America. From 1998 to 2000 Peter chaired the Pinyin Conversion Task Force of the Council on East Asian Libraries for the conversion of Chinese romanization system in North American libraries. He has been a consultant for some major research libraries and foundations in US and Asia. He has spoken and published on numerous topics, and most recently, he edited and published two books on Chinese classics and library education.

Peter Zhou was born in Wuhan, China. He holds a BA (equivalent) from Anhui University and an MA from Wuhan University both in English language and literature; he also holds an MS in library and information science and a PhD in linguistics from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.