Heng Xu

Xu earned a B.B.A. in Information Systems from the Shandong University School of Management in 2001.[1] In 2006, she completed a Ph.D. in Information Systems from the National University of Singapore School of Computing.[1] While completing her doctoral studies, Xu studied fashion designing, enrolling part-time at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts.[2]

Xu joined the College of Information Sciences and Technology at the Pennsylvania State University as an assistant professor in 2006.[1] She became director of its privacy analytics lab in 2007.[1] From 2012 to June 2018, she was an associate professor with tenure.[1] In this role, she researched the social and technical aspects of information privacy.[2] 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.[1] In that role, she oversaw secure and trustworthy cyberspace (SaTC), critical technics, and technologies for advancing big data science and engineering.[1]

In July 2018, Xu joined the Kogod School of Business at American University as a professor of information technology and analytics.[1] She is the director of the Kogod cybersecurity governance center and co-director of the robust analytics lab.[1] She researches corporate social responsibility with big data and artificial intelligence, fairness in machine learning, and cybersecurity management.[3][4]