Shao Xiaocheng , born in 1957, is a prominent Chinese embroidery artist who is the Director of the Beijing Shao Xiaocheng Embroidery Research Institute. She is a senior national fine art master of arts and crafts and a member of the Internationale Organisation Fur Volkskunst (IOV) of UNESCO. She has been researching the history, reality, theories and practice of Chinese embroidery while creating fine art over the past thirty years. Shao Xiaocheng's research covers embroidery varieties on the verge of extinction and those that have become extinct since ancient times. Moreover, she has succeeded in practicing and summing up complicated techniques of repairing and duplicating those embroidered pieces as cultural relics in different styles. She took the lead in bringing the education of embroidery into institutions of higher learning, having promoted the inheritance, protection, appraisal and appreciation of embroidery as a Chinese national heritage. Her book Appreciation of Chinese Embroidery has been published and she also has written many papers on embroidery like Getting to Know Four Major Schools of Noted Embroidery before Collecting Embroidered Articles and Collection and Appraisal of Embroidery .