Xinshen Diao of China joined IFPRI as Research Fellow in 2000, became Senior Research Fellow in 2005, and currently is co-leader of "development strategy research" program (IFPRI research theme 6.2). Xinshen earned a B.A. and M.A. in business economics from the Beijing Institute of Economics and a Ph.D. in applied economics from the University of Minnesota. Xinshen has long time experience working on economic development and growth, intersectoral linkages, international trade, and regional integration and dynamics. Xinshen is a dynamic general equilibrium modeler and has published more than 80 articles in various economic journals, IFPRI Research Reports and economic books.

In the recent years, Xinshen concentrated on growth and poverty reduction analysis in Africa both at country and regional levels. The countries she has been working on include Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda, and Zambia, and the regions include East Africa, West and Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Before coming to IFPRI, Xinshen was an assistant professor of applied economics at the University of Minnesota, stationed at the Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture. She was divison director and assistant director general of the Economic Reform Institute of China in Beijing in the late 1980s.