The International Association for Pattern Recognition (IAPR) has announced its 2026 list of newly elected Fellows, with Professor Shen Chao from the Faculty of Electronic and Information Engineering at Xi'an Jiaotong University (XJTU) among the inductees. He was elected "for contributions to the theory and industrial applications of trustworthy multimedia analysis and recognition."

Established in 1978, the IAPR is one of the most authoritative international academic organizations in pattern recognition, and China joined the association in 1980. The IAPR Fellow program was introduced in 1994, and selections take place biennially.

Maintaining exceptionally strict criteria, the election rate is less than 0.25 percent of the total membership, aiming to honor individuals who have made distinguished contributions to the field of pattern recognition and IAPR activities.

Shen Chao is an IEEE Fellow, a National Distinguished Professor, leader of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) Innovation Research Group (Type B), head of an innovation team supported by the Ministry of Education, and a recipient of the Xplore Prize and the Alibaba DAMO Academy Young Fellow Award.

He serves as the director of the Key Laboratory of Intelligent Networks and Network Security of the Ministry of Education, chief scientist for the National Key Research and Development Program of China, and technical chief scientist for the National Basic Enhancement Plan.

Primarily engaged in teaching and research on AI system control, trustworthiness, and security, he has received 14 best paper awards, authored three monographs, and led efforts to win three first-class provincial/ministerial or national first-level society science and technology awards, the Fok Ying-Tong Education Foundation Young Teachers Award, MIT TR35 China, the IEEE SMC Early Career Award, and the IEEE Outstanding SMC Chapter Award, among others.

His professional service includes roles as associate vice-president of the IEEE SMC Society, chair of the IEEE Technical Committee on Trustworthy and Controllable Intelligent Systems, chair of IEEE SMC&CS Xi'an, vice chair of ACM SIGSAC China, and deputy director of the Organization Working Committee of the Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence (CAAI).