Hongtao Zhou

Hongtao Zhou is an Assis­tant Profes­sor of the School of Archi­tec­ture at the Univer­sity of Hawai’i at Manoa. As an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary scholar and artist, he researches, prac­tices and teaches in the areas of Archi­tec­ture Design, Exhi­bi­tion Design, Furni­ture Design & Fabri­ca­tion and Contem­po­rary Sculp­ture & Installation. 

Hongtao holds a PhD from Purdue Univer­sity, a MFA from Univer­sity of Wiscon­sin-Madison and a MS from North­east Forest Univer­sity of China, where he taught as an Assis­tant Profes­sor of Art and Design for four years. Prior to joining UHM, Hongtao was a Guest Curator at Milwau­kee Art Museum, a Designer at Drift studio as well as an Instruc­tor and Wood­shop Super­vi­sor at the Univer­sity of Wiscon­sin-Madison. Since joining UHM, Hongtao had been serving as the Direc­tor of the Haigo and Irene Shen Archi­tec­ture Gallery, Campus Art Advi­sory Commit­tee Member and Hawaii Woodguild Show Jury. Currently he is newly elected Exec­u­tive Member and Curator of the National Asso­ci­a­tion of Chinese Artists in Amer­i­can Acad­e­mia. He has lectured at Peking Univer­sity, Tsinghua Univer­sity, MIT, China Central Academy of Fine Art and Tianjin Academy of Fine Art. Hongtao also served as the Faculty Resi­dent Direc­tor of the Global Track program in Shang­hai teach­ing Urban Design, Thesis and Archi­tec­tural Instal­la­tion courses to the Doctor of Archi­tec­ture candi­dates from UHM and Tongji University. 

Hongtao has exhib­ited nation­ally & inter­na­tion­ally includ­ing Gwangju Design Bien­nale-South Korea, National Museum of China in Beijing, Milwau­kee Art Museum, Chazen Museum of Art, Haggerty Museum of Art, Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites, Charles Allis Art Museum, Honolulu Museum of Art School, Philadel­phia Art Alliance, Houston Center for Contem­po­rary Craft, Museum of Contem­po­rary Craft in Port­land, Central Academy of Fine Arts Museum in Beijing and Taiwan Design Center. He published his work and research in Inte­rior Design, Interni, Design Bureau, Trans­ma­te­r­ial, Metrop­o­lis, Amer­i­can Craft, Artdaily Zhuang­shi Maga­zine, Modern Weekly and Huff­in­g­ton Post. He also lectured at MIT, Peking Univer­sity, Tsinghua Univer­sity and China Central Academy of Fine Art. 

Hongtao is a winner of the Silver Medal at the Inter­na­tional Snow Sculp­ture Compe­ti­tion in Quebec, the First Place Novice of Hawaii Wood­show, Madison Art Commis­sion BLINK Grant, Vermont Studio Center Fellow­ship Award and the First Place Award of Design Empha­sis, Inter­na­tional Wood­work­ing Fair in Atlanta.