04/15/2025

A Cybersecurity Professor Disappeared Amid an FBI Search

His family is ‘determined to fight’

The wife of data privacy professor Xiaofeng Wang, who was fired from his tenured job at Indiana University, Bloomington (IU) the same day the couple’s houses were searched by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) last month, said on Monday that she believes her family has been unfairly targeted by the U.S. government and is the victim of what she described as "misplaced accusations of academic misconduct."

"Our family is determined to fight, not only for ourselves, but for the broader research community who would be impacted if this type of allegation goes unchallenged," Nianli Ma said.

This is the first time Ma has spoken publicly since the FBI searches occurred in late March. She appeared at a webinar hosted by the Asian American Scholar Forum (AASF), a nonprofit group formed in early 2021 to advocate for the rights and recognition of Asian American scholars. Ma worked as a library analyst at the university before she was also abruptly fired from IU days before the FBI searched two of the couple's homes, The Indiana Daily Student reported.

Please select this link to read the complete article from WIRED.