Zhu Kezhen (1890-1974) was born in Dongguan, Kuaiji, Shaoxing (today’s Shangyu). He was president of Zhejiang University from 1936-1949. The university moved several times during the war times. Despite difficult situations and shortage of supplies, Zhu Kezhen relied on staff and students to run the school. He advocated the university’s spirit of seeking truth from facts and wrote an essay entitled On the Spirit of Seeking Truth from Facts and the Spirit of Sacrifice. In the essay, he called for pursuit of truth and courage to pursue the truth despite death. He attracted a group of experts of national and international renown to teach at Zhejiang University and made it one of the most famous universities in China. In 1946 the university moved back to Hangzhou.

In July 1947, he was elected executive member of the central committee of Kuomintang and in March 1948 he was elected academician of State Central Academy of Researches.   In July 1949, Zhu participated in the preliminary meeting of the National Scientists Congress in Beijing and attended the first CPPCC in September. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, Zhu took the posts of commissioner of the Culture and Education Commission of the Central Government, vice president of China Academy of Sciences, member of Chinese Natural Sciences United Association, president of China Meteorology Association, president of China Geography Association, director of biology and geosciences department of China Academy of Sciences, managing director of Chinese People’s Association for Culture with Foreign Countries, commissioner of Science Planning Committee under the State Council, president of the state committee for Year of International Geophysics, deputy and standing committee member of the first, second, and third National People’s Congress. Zhu Joined the Communist Party in June 1962.   

Zhu Kezhen was knowledgeable and strict in his standards for pursuit of education goals. He devoted himself to the study of several scientific disciplines. Founder of modern China’s geography and meteorology, he came up with brilliant views and made great contributions to studies of climatic changes, phenology, agroclimate, natural division, and history of sciences. He published over 240 academic papers. His major works are A Few New Facts in the Center of a Typhoon, New Classification of Typhoon in Far East, Movements of Air Currents in China, Southeast Monsoon and Rainfall in China, Relations of Climate and Men and Other lives, On the Characteristics of China’s Climate and the Relations between the Characteristics and Food Production, Phenology, A Preliminary Study of Climate Changes in China over the Past Five Millennia, China’s Subtropical Zone, A Preliminary Study of Climatic Types of East Asia, and so on. Selected Works of Zhu Kezhen has been published.