Shi Zelin, born in 1965, is the director of the Shenyang Institute of Automation (SIA) at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. SIA is one of the foremost robotics research institutions in China, hosting several national labs dedicated to the study of robotics.

The U.S. Department of Commerce added SIA to the Entity List in 2022, restricting exports of products made with American technology to the institution. Shi is an expert on precision guidance technology and holds a doctorate from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.