Zachary grew up in a small village in Hunan and attended an agricultural college in China (first batch of college students after the cultural revolution). During the early 80s, he obtained a national scholarship to study honey bees in Canada. After obtaining his Ph.D. he moved with his family to University of Missouri at Columbia to work with plant mites. One and half year later they moved to University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and returned to honey bees again. November 1st, 1998, he came to the Michigan State University as an assistant professor. He became tenured and was promoted to be an associate professor Oct of 2004.