Shao Kwang-tsao (Chinese: éµ廣æÂÂ; born May 17, 1951) is a Taiwanese ichthyologist from Keelung. He is currently the Executive Director of the .
Shao was born in Keelung, Taiwan, in 1951. His ancestral home is in Wuxi, Jiangsu. He received his bachelorâÂÂs degree in Fisheries Biology from the Department of Zoology, National Taiwan University (the department has since merged into the Department of Life Science, and the graduate section became the Institute of Zoology). He then pursued a masterâÂÂs degree in the Institute of Oceanography at NTU under Chang Kun-hsiung, conducting marine diving research, and obtained his M.Sc. in 1976. Shao later attended the Department of Ecology and Evolution at Stony Brook University in the United States, earning his Ph.D. in 1983.
After completing his Ph.D., he returned to Taiwan and joined the Institute of Zoology, Academia Sinica (now the Institute of Cellular and Organismic Biology, Academia Sinica). He served successively as deputy director and director of the institute, as well as director of the Institute of Marine Biology at the National Taiwan Ocean University. He is currently the Executive Director of the Biodiversity Research Center, Academia Sinica.
ShaoâÂÂs research mainly focuses on the biodiversity of fishes in Taiwan, emphasizing biological systematics, marine ecology, fish taxonomy, fish ecology, and evolutionary biology. He is the principal investigator of the Fish Database of Taiwan project.
During his tenure as Executive Director of the Biodiversity Research Center at Academia Sinica, Shao was accused of falsifying employment records to increase the salary of an assistant surnamed Tsai. He allegedly listed TsaiâÂÂs mother as a âÂÂtemporary workerâ in official reports and diverted approximately NT$7,000 per month to supplement TsaiâÂÂs pay. Shao, Tsai, and TsaiâÂÂs mother were all indicted by prosecutors for document forgery.
He has also published several hundred academic papers in both Chinese and English journals.