Shuxuan Zeng

Helen's research lies in the intersection of digital economics, technology and policy. Her research vision is to bridge technology and policy, by engaging firms, institutions and regulators in understanding how to create and deliver “virtuous" digital products for business and society. Her research aims to understand the role for stakeholder accountability in the new digital marketplace. 

During her PhD, she has conducted studies that examine how digitization and Information Technology (IT) implementation could lead to catastrophic societal outcomes when implemented without proper regulatory safeguards. Specifically, her doctoral dissertation centers on addressing a critical and heartrending problem brought by the use of IT: the widespread availability of child sexual abuse materials (CSAM) and human trafficking (especially the trafficking of minors) on digital platforms. Her research aims to answer a key question: how institutions and firms should identify and respond to societal harms occurring in digital markets.

Helen is a member of Global Association of Human Trafficking Scholars (GAHTS), K & L Gates Presidential Fellow in Ethics and Computational Technologies. Her research won the 2022 George Duncan Award for Excellence in Doctoral Studies for the Second Research Paper and 2020 Suresh Konda Best First Student Research Paper Award from the Heinz College. Prior to PhD, she completed her Bachelor of Science in Statistics & Math from the University of Hong Kong, and Master of Arts in Quantitative Methods in Social Sciences from Columbia University.