Zhao Dingxin (1953-) is a sociologist. He received his undergraduate degree in biology from Fudan University in 1982, and later received his Master and Ph.D. degrees in Insect Ecology from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and McGill University in Canada, respectively. He then switched to sociology and received his Ph.D. in sociology from McGill University in 1995, and taught in the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago from 1996 to 2021, where he served as assistant professor, associate professor, professor, and Max Palevsky professor emeritus. In 2012, Zhao joined the School of Public Administration at Zhejiang University, where he served as visiting professor, professor, Dean of the Department of Sociology, and Director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Humanities and Social Sciences. In March 2024, Wu resigned from all positions related to the Department of Sociology.
Zhao Dingxin's research interests include political sociology, social movements, and historical sociology, and he is the author of *Social and Political Movements* and *The Power of Tiananmen: State - Society Relations and the 1989 Beijing Student Movement*.
