She holds a PhD from Georgia Institute of Technology, an MS from Johns Hopkins University, and a BS from University of Science and Technology of China, all in Computer Science. She also worked as a software engineer in IT industry for several years prior to pursuing her doctorate. Her areas of research are in data privacy and security, data management, and biomedical informatics. Her research is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, and industry awards including a Cisco Research Award and an IBM Faculty Innovation Award.