Helen S. Zeng

Helen is a PhD student in Information Systems & Management​ in Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). She is advised by Prof. Michael D. Smith.

She is on the academic job market for 2023-2024!

Contact her at shuxuanz@andrew.cmu.edu.
​Photo Credit: Julie Xia

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Helen's research lies in the intersection of digital economics, technology and policy. Her research broadly ​aims to bring technology and policy together, using empirical evidence to inform policy decisions around technological innovation change. In particular, her research studies two broad questions: 1) what are the societal impacts of innovation and technological change, with a focus on Information Technology (IT) and digital platforms; 2) how governance and firms' strategy should change in adapt to technological transformation. Specifically, her doctoral dissertation focuses on platform regulations, addressing an important and timely public policy debate: How to regulate in responding to the rise in child sexual abuse materials and human sex trafficking facilitated by digital platforms. She uses mixed methods in her research, including structural models, econometrics and causal inference with machine learning. 
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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.

News

Presenting my work (joint with George H. Chen, Brett Danaher and Michael D. Smith) "Holding Digital Platforms Accountable for Online Child
Trafficking? Evidence from Two Escort Review Sites" at CIST in Phoeniz, AZ on Oct 14 & 15th.​