Helen S. Zeng Assistant Professor at Graduate School of Management at University of California, Davis. Contact her at [email protected]. The rapid pace of technological innovation often leaves policy, philosophy, and societal understanding lagging behind, creating challenges—and at times unintended negative externalities - for individuals, firms, and government institutions deeply affected by these advances. Helen's work seeks to bridge this gap by examining the implications of new technologies and their adoption, while informing decisions that shape their use. In doing so, she aims to help society fully harness the benefits of technological progress, mitigate the chaos it may create, and advance our understanding of humanity and policy in step with the speed of innovation. In particular, her research seeks to address three central questions: 1) What are the impacts of technological innovation and emerging technologies across different domains of life? 2) Why does the adoption of new technologies generate particular outcomes—what mechanisms drive these effects, and how can understanding them deepen our knowledge of human behavior and advance our understanding of humanity? 3) How should individuals, entrepreneurs and regulators adapt to technological progress in order to harness its benefits for society as a whole? 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. She uses mixed methods in her research, including econometrics, structural models and causal inference with machine learning. Helen obtained her PhD in Information Systems & Management in Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), where is advised by Prof. Michael D. Smith. Helen is a member of K & L Gates Presidential Fellow in Ethics and Computational Technologies. Her research won the 2024 Nunamaker-Chen Dissertation Award from the INFORMS Information Systems Society (ISS), William W. Cooper Doctoral Dissertation Award, 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
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