Heng Xu

Biographical Information

Dr. Heng Xu joined IST as an assistant professor in August 2006.
 
She received her Ph.D. in information systems from the School of Computing at the National University of Singapore. Her Ph.D. dissertation, “Privacy Considerations in the Location Based Services,” was a runner up for the 2006 ACM SIGMIS Doctoral Dissertation Award Competition.

Research and Teaching

Dr. Xu leads the Privacy Assurance Lab (PAL), an inter-disciplinary research group working on a diverse set of projects related to understanding and assuring information privacy.

Currently focused on the interplay between social and technological issues associated with information privacy, Xu approaches privacy issues through a combination of empirical, theoretical and technical research efforts. Her research projects deal with the impact of novel technologies on individuals' privacy perceptions, strategic management of firms’ information privacy practices, and design and empirical evaluations of privacy-enhancing technologies.

Her interdisciplinary research has been sponsored by National Science Foundation and National Security Agency.

Xu’s teaching activities cover topics in integration of privacy and security, security and risks analysis, and human information behavior.

Publications:

(Selected Publications)

Xu, H., Dinev, T., Smith, H. J., and Hart, P. “Examining the Formation of Individual’s Information Privacy Concerns: Toward an Integrative View,” Proceedings of 29thAnnual International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2008), Paris, France, December 2008, (24% acceptance rate).

Xu, H., Irani, N., Zhu, S., and Xu, W. “Alleviating Parental Concerns for Children’s Online Privacy: A Value Sensitive Design Investigation,” Proceedings of 29th Annual International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2008), Paris, France, December 2008.

Xu, H., Oh, L. B., and Teo, H. H. “Perceived Effectiveness of Text versus Multimedia Location-Based Advertising Messaging,” International Journal of Mobile Communications, forthcoming.

Xu, H. “The Effects of Self-Construal and Perceived Control on Privacy Concerns,” Proceedings of 28th Annual International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2007), Montréal, Canada, Dec. 2007 (21% acceptance rate).

Blodgett, M. B., Xu, H., and Trauth, M. E. “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) issues in Virtual Worlds,” The DATA BASE for Advances in Information Systems (38:4), November 2007, pp. 97-99.

Xu, H., Teo, H. H., and Tan, B.C.Y. “Predicting the Adoption of Location-Based Services: The Roles of Trust and Privacy Risk,” Proceedings of 26th Annual International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2005), Las Vegas, Nevada, Dec. 2005, pp. 897-910 (13% acceptance rate).

Xu, H., and Teo, H. H. “Alleviating Consumer’s Privacy Concern in Location-Based Services: A Psychological Control Perspective,” Proceedings of the 25th Annual International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2004), Washington, D. C., Dec. 2004, pp. 793-806 (16% acceptance rate).

Oh, L.B., and Xu, H. “Effects of Multimedia on Mobile Consumer Behavior: An Empirical Study of Location Aware Advertising,” Proceedings of 24th Annual International Conferences on Information Systems (ICIS 2003), Seattle, Dec. 2003, pp.679-691 (15% acceptance rate). (Best Theme Paper Nominee)