Dr. Heng Xu is a Professor of Management in the Warrington College of Business at the University of Florida, where she also co-directs the Center for AI Ethics, Cyber Governance and Privacy Management. Dr. Xu’s recent research focuses on AI ethics, data analytics, data privacy, and cybersecurity management. Her interdisciplinary work has been supported by multiple grants from federal agencies and industry, totaling over $8 million. Her scholarly work has been published in premier outlets across various fields such as Business, Computer Science, Law and Psychology, including Information Systems Research, Management Information Systems Quarterly (MIS Quarterly), Management Science, Personnel Psychology, Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), Psychological Methods, University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, and many others.
Dr. Xu's work has received many awards, including INFORMS Information Systems Society's Haim Mendelson Teaching Innovation Award (2023), MISQ Impact Award (2021), Woman of Achievement Award in IEEE Big Data Security (2021), IEEE ITSS Leadership Award in Intelligence and Security Informatics (2020), the Operational Research Society's Stafford Beer Medal (2018), National Science Foundation's CAREER award (2010), and many best paper awards and nominations at various conferences.
Drawing from years of exceptional leadership and contributions, Dr. Xu has been at the forefront of creating practical impact on the research and industry landscape. As the Director of the Cybersecurity Governance Center at the American University’s Kogod School of Business from 2018 to 2023, she spearheaded initiatives that garnered millions in research support from federal agencies and industry frontrunners, including Amazon, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), Warner Bros. Discovery, Facebook/Meta, Marriott, National Science Foundation (NSF), Raytheon, and more. Prior to that, her contribution as a committee member on the National Academies' Open Science Committee (2017-2018) was instrumental in creating an influential report "Open Science by Design: Realizing a Vision for 21st Century Research," which has since illuminated the pathways for achieving an open science ecosystem. Furthermore, her contribution as a member of the National Privacy Research Strategy Working Group (2014-2016) was instrumental in forging the inaugural National Privacy Research Strategy, a White House-released blueprint that has been a cornerstone in shaping national strategies for safeguarding privacy in an interconnected digital era.
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