Zee was born in Kunming, China, in 1945, but his family fled to Hong Kong when he was four years old.

[2][3] His father was a self-taught businessman, and after a few years in Hong Kong, during a slump in business, decided to move the family again, this time to Brazil.

[2] After completing his postdoctoral studies, Zee accepted an assistant professorship at Rockefeller University in New York in 1972.

[2] In his first year back at Princeton, Zee had Ed Witten as his teaching assistant and grader.

[5] At UCSB, Zee teaches courses on both general relativity and quantum field theory.