Draft:Xinzhou Li

Xinzhou Li (Chinese: 李新洲; pinyin: Lǐ Xīnzhōu; March 17, 1946 - December 24, 2022) was a Chinese theoretical physicist known for his work on particle physics, gravity and cosmology. He has held academic positions in China, including professor of physics at Fudan University, founding director of East China Institute for Theoretical Physics and the chair of the physics department at East China University of Science and Technology, and Founding Director of the Shanghai United Center for Astrophysics at Shanghai Normal University, where he taught from 1999 until his retirement in 2016. He passed away in Shanghai on December 24, 2022. .

Early life and education
Li was born in 1946 in Qingyang Town (Chinese: 青阳镇) of Jiangyin City (Chinese: 江阴市) in Jiangsu province (Chinese: 江苏省) and started his early education in Shanghai. In 1957, he attended the prestigious Fuxing Middle School in Shanghai, and, at the age of 17 in 1963, he was admitted to the mathematics department of Fudan University.

Early career
Li graduated from Fudan University in 1968, amid the Cultural Revolution, when normal academic progression was stopped. He started his first job at the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission. In 1970, Li became a math teacher at Dongsheng Middle School (Chinese: 东升中学), where he taught until 1977. In 1978, Li and his collaborators published their first research paper in the inaugural issue of Chinese Journal of Nature (Chinese：自然杂志).

Academic appointments
Li joined the physics department of Fudan University as a teaching assistant in 1978 and was promoted to lecturer in 1983, associate professor in 1985, and became the youngest full physics professor in 1987. In 1989, Li joined the East China University of Science and Technology and founded the East China Institute for Theoretical Physics, serving as the director until 1999. He also chaired the physics department from 1998 to 1999. In 1999, Li moved to Shanghai Normal University, where he was appointed as the director of the office of research (Chinese: 科研处) from 2000 to 2002 to coordinate the university's research activities. Later on, he founded the Shanghai United Center for Astrophysics in 2002 and served as the director until his retirement in 2016. He also served as the vice chair of the university council on academic affairs (Chinese: 校务委员会) from 2002 to 2007 and was appointed level-2 professor in 2010

Research and teaching
Li authored and co-authored over 300 published works, including research papers, popular science articles, monographs and translated books. He was active in a number of frontiers, encompassing particle physics, gravitational theory and cosmology. Li made several contributions, including the counter example of positive mass conjecture, generalized Riemann-Zeta function regularization for Casimir energy, the geometric dependency of attractive and repulsive Casimir force , cosmological models without big rip, the proof of Kantoski-Sach universe cannot be closed , and various dark energy models. Li taught several courses in physics, including Mathematical Methods in Physics, Group Theory, General Relativity, Cosmology, Astroparticle Physics, Modern Differential Geometry, Modern Mathematical Physics, Computational Methods in Gravitational Physics, among others.

Science popularization
Li was a guest editor for China's Science Magazine, and wrote many invited popular science articles for the magazine. He also wrote frequently for other Chinese popular science magazines, such as World Science, and Nature Magazine. He and his students translated many well-known popular science books into Chinese, including Impossibility: Limits of Science and the Science of Limits, The Blackhole War, The Meaning of Relativity, and others .

Awards
Li was recognized by several notable awards in China, including Shanghai Science and Technology Advancement Award (Second Prize, 1998; First Prize, 2005), National Education Commission Science and Technology Advancement Award (Third Prize in 1991 and 1995), Shanxi Province Science and Technology Achievement Award (Third Prize in 1983). He received an honorable mention in the 1999 Essays on Gravitation competition hosted by the Gravity Research Foundation.

Social activity
Li joined Jiusan Society in 1985, and served in both Shanghai municipal and the central committees