Tao Zhu was born in Sichua, China, in 1976. He got his Ph.D in Optical Engineering from Chongqing University in 2008. He worked as a post-doc at the Department of Physics in University of Ottawa, Canada during 2010-2011. Since April 2011, he is a professor and serves as the director of photonic device and system laboratory. His interests are mainly in the fields of laser and control technology, optical fiber sensing, as well as photoelectric functional devices.

He is one of the associate editors of IEEE Photonics Journals，Opto-Electronic Engineering and Light: Advanced Manufacturing, and a council member of China Optical Society, China Institute of Optical Engineering, the TPC members of APOS, AFL and other international professional conferences. He has authored/co-authored over 200 academic papers, and he is a recipient of 40 plus authorized invention patents and a monograph entitled "Principles and Applications of Fiber Bragg Grating" cooperatively.