Heng Xu is a professor specializing in

corporate social responsibility Corporate social responsibility (CSR) or corporate social impact is a form of international private business industry self-regulation, self-regulation which aims to contribute to societal goals of a philanthropy, philanthropic, activist, or chari ...

regarding

big data Big data primarily refers to data sets that are too large or complex to be dealt with by traditional data processing, data-processing application software, software. Data with many entries (rows) offer greater statistical power, while data with ...

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

, and

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of study in artificial intelligence concerned with the development and study of Computational statistics, statistical algorithms that can learn from data and generalise to unseen data, and thus perform Task ( ...

. She is a professor in the Department of Information Technology and Analytics and the Director of Kogod Cybersecurity Governance Center at the Kogod School of Business of American University.

Life

Xu earned a B.B.A. in

Information Systems An information system (IS) is a formal, sociotechnical, organizational system designed to collect, process, store, and distribute information. From a sociotechnical perspective, information systems comprise four components: task, people, structu ...

from the

Shandong University Shandong University (; SDU) is a public university in Jinan, Shandong, China. It is affiliated with the Ministry of Education (China), Ministry of Education of China. The university is part of Project 211, Project 985, and the Double First-Clas ...

School of Management in 2001. In 2006, she completed a Ph.D. in Information Systems from the

National University of Singapore The National University of Singapore (NUS) is a national university, national Public university, public research university in Singapore. It was officially established in 1980 by the merging of the University of Singapore and Nanyang University ...

School of Computing. While completing her doctoral studies, Xu studied fashion designing, enrolling part-time at the

Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA; zh, 南洋艺术学院; ; ) is a publicly-funded post-secondary arts institution in Singapore, and a constituent college of the University of the Arts Singapore (UAS) from 2024. NAFA offers courses at high-s ...

. Xu joined the College of Information Sciences and Technology at the

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsyl ...

as an assistant professor in 2006. She became director of its privacy analytics lab in 2007. From 2012 to June 2018, she was an associate professor with tenure. In this role, she researched the social and technical aspects of

information privacy Information privacy is the relationship between the collection and dissemination of data, technology, the public expectation of privacy, contextual information norms, and the legal and political issues surrounding them. It is also known as dat ...

. From August 2013 to August 2016, Xu was a program director in the directorate for social, behavioral, and economic sciences at the

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

. In that role, she oversaw secure and trustworthy

cyberspace Cyberspace is an interconnected digital environment. It is a type of virtual world popularized with the rise of the Internet. The term entered popular culture from science fiction and the arts but is now used by technology strategists, security ...

(SaTC), critical technics, and technologies for advancing

science and engineering. In July 2018, Xu joined the Kogod School of Business at

American University The American University (AU or American) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Its main campus spans 90-acres (36 ha) on Ward Circle, in the Spri ...

as a professor of information technology and analytics. She is the director of the Kogod

cybersecurity Computer security (also cybersecurity, digital security, or information technology (IT) security) is a subdiscipline within the field of information security. It consists of the protection of computer software, systems and networks from thr ...

governance center and co-director of the robust analytics lab. She researches

with big data and

, fairness in machine learning, and cybersecurity management.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Xu, Heng Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) Shandong University alumni National University of Singapore alumni Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts alumni Pennsylvania State University faculty American University faculty Chinese expatriate academics in the United States United States National Science Foundation officials 21st-century Chinese women scientists People in information technology Chinese women computer scientists Information scientists People associated with computer security