Shaoping Xiao is a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He is a researcher at the Iowa Initiative for Artificial Intelligence and the Iowa Technology Institute. His current research interest is applying artificial intelligence techniques to multiscale science and engineering problems, including mechanics of nanocomposites, robotics and control, flood mitigation, agricultural management, and climate change. 

Professor Xiao is a member of the International Association of Computational Mechanics and the U.S. National Association of Computational Mechanics.