WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Xiaoping Bao, the William K. Luckow Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at Purdue University’s Davidson School of Chemical Engineering, has been named a 2026 Showalter Faculty Scholar.

The Showalter Faculty Scholar designation is awarded to a select subset of Purdue University Faculty Scholars whose research falls within the life sciences. The title reflects support from the Ralph W. and Grace M. Showalter Trust and recognizes the recipient’s expertise and excellence in that area. The University Faculty Scholar designation honors outstanding Purdue faculty members who are on an accelerated path for academic distinction and leadership. Bao’s appointment runs through 2030.

Bao’s research focuses on engineering human pluripotent stem cells — including embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells — as platforms for modeling human disease and developing next-generation cell and gene therapies. His laboratory works at the intersection of stem cell biology, gene editing and computational biology, with the goal of generating specialized cell types such as cardiac cells, immune T and natural killer cells, and neutrophils for treating heart disease, cancer and blood disorders.

Bao joined Purdue in 2019. He earned his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Tsinghua University, his doctorate in chemical and biological engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and completed postdoctoral training at the University of California, Berkeley.