MingQing Xiao is an applied math professor at Southern Illinois University. He specializes in partial differential equations, control theory, dynamical systems, and computational science.

On April 21, 2021, the Department of Justice announced that a federal grand jury had returned an indictment charging the professor with two counts of wire fraud and one count of making a false statement. According to the press release:

“Xiao allegedly applied for and received National Science Foundation (NSF) grant funds for a project set to run from 2019 to 2022 without informing NSF about another, overlapping grant he had already received from the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, China.” 

Additionally:

“Xiao also allegedly failed to inform NSF that he was on the payroll of Shenzhen University, a public university in Guangdong Province, and that he had already committed to teaching and conducting research at Shenzhen University from 2018 to 2023.” 

The release also states that NSF questioned Xiao about any current or pending funding from “worldwide sources” and the indictment accuses him of falsely reporting to NSF that he had nothing else to disclose.

In October 2021, additional charges were levied against Professor Xiao, including tax fraud and failure to disclose a foreign bank account.

On May 5, 2022, Reuters reported that Xiao was convicted of failing to disclose a Chinese bank account on his 2017 to 2019 tax returns but was cleared of concealing his ties to China while seeking federal grant funding. The jury acquitted Xiao of making a false statement in connection with a NSF grant proposal and U.S. Judge Staci Yandle “found prosecutors failed to prove two related wire fraud charges.”

In September 2022, Professor Xiao was sentenced to 1 year of probation and given a $600 fine. Xiao has been on paid administrative leave from SIUC since his indictment in April 2021. As of publication, he is still on leave.

 

You may contact Southern Illinois University by phone at (618)-453-2121. 

Published – September 30, 2022