Shuyuan Mary Ho, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Shuyuan’s research focuses on trusted human-computer interactions, specifically addressing issues of cyber insider threats, computer-mediated deception and deepfakes. The theory of trustworthiness attribution integrates social psychologies on trust and attribution, for insider threat detection as supported by cyberinfrastructure. Shuyuan further develops the framework of dyadic attribution model to assess human trustworthiness in sophisticated online communication. Shuyuan designs online games as an experiment protocol for investigating human deception and betrayal in virtual organizations. The sociotechnical research approach utilizes social-psychological theories along with pragmatic viewpoints on language-action cues to create an innovative methodology for computational modeling of next generation behavioral inference systems based on language-action features in complex trust relationships. Collective sensing provides the generative AI mechanism with language-action cues and large language networks that can infer human disposition and intent. From theories, Shuyuan’s research has been extended into real-world experiments and applications. Digital evidence and big data – gleaned from social media and network packets – is analyzed to explore organizational and societal problems. To support organizational cyber awareness, Shuyuan adopted the lens of activity theory to conceptualize cyber defense as an activity system. This approach offers a transformative approach to supporting organizations in collectively gaining consciousness of cyber defense. In support of a global society addressing the cyberbullying problem that victimizes social media users and threatens freedom of speech, Shuyuan adopted big data profiling analytics based on charged language, thus proposing an identification algorithm for preventing cyberbullies from possibly criminal activity. Unfortunately, increased online activities continue to transform the cyber threat landscape, leading to a growing cybercrime-as-a-service (CaaS) economy. This CaaS economy is the upcoming social norm, which makes cyber forensics analysis of digital evidence on Internet of Things (IoT), multimedia and network traffic ever more important for law enforcement. To support personal self defense and navigation during a pandemic, Shuyuan further developed the social distance nudge; a context aware mHealth intervention phone app to influence and safeguard personal social behavior. You can reference Shuyuan's ORCID, Google Scholar and CV.
Education
- TrustedCI Fellow, The NSF Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (2021)
- Ph.D., Information Sci. & Tech., Syracuse University iSchool (2009)
- M.Phil., Information Transfer, Syracuse University iSchool (2007)
- M.B.A., Information Systems, University of Hartford (1996)
- B.S., Computer Science, Ohio Dominican University (1993)
Shuyuan is an active member of well-known international academic and professional associations, e.g., Association for Information Systems (AIS), The American Society for Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T), Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium, Inc. (ISC)2, and Information Systems Audit & Control Association (ISACA). Shuyuan is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), a Certified in Risk and Information Systems Control (CRISC), and a Certified Information Security Manager (CISM).
Research Interests
Trusted human-computer interactions; trustworthiness attribution; computer-mediated deception; collective intelligence; deepfakes; cyber forensics; cyberbullying; sociotechnical systems
Teaching Interests
Cybersecurity; information systems; information science; information ethics; cyber defense operations
Publications & Research
Shuyuan founded the iSensor Analytics Lab in 2010. iSensor Analytics Lab is primarily focused on conducting sociotechnical research related to human factors (e.g., behavioral threat) in cyberspace. Experiments are conducted in a live, and virtual laboratory. Research data is collected through confined resources and interactions that are based on real-world cyber trust and deception simulations. Shuyuan holds a U.S. Patent 11,714,970 titled “Online Polygraph: Systems and methods for detecting deception in computer-mediated communication,” (FSU Tech ID 21-020) was issued on August 1, 2023. Shuyuan also has two copyrighted inventions; Veracity AI truth disclosure against adversarial image manipulation and Pandemic Self Defense (FSU Tech ID 21-003) mHealth intervention that helps mobile phone users with situational awareness during a pandemic. Please reference Shuyuan's ORCID, Google Scholar, and CV to find her recent publications and work.
Grants & Awards
- U.S. Air Force STTR Phase II (AF21A-TCSO1 Phase II F2-15465, FA864922P0708): Project Aletheia: Detecting Adversarial Manipulation of Image Data, $750,000, 3/10/22-6/30/23. Role: Principal Investigator.
- Florida State University Collaborative Collision Seed Award (CC-046280): An Examination of the mHealth Mobile Phone App on COVID-19 knowledge and vaccine hesitancy among residents of a Federally Qualified Housing Community, $10,000, 9/1/21-3/1/22. Role: Co–Principal Investigator.
- U.S. Air Force STTR Phase I (AF21A-TCSO1-0185, FA864921P1396): Project Aletheia: A Gamified Truth Disclosure Platform, $50,000, 5/1/21-7/31/21. Role: Principal Investigator.
- Florida State University Collaborative Collision Seed Award (CC-045704): Achieving Economic Normality and Public Health via Deep Learning Modeling and Contact Tracing, $19,519.50, 5/11/20-8/18/20. Role: Co–Principal Investigator.
- Florida Center for Cybersecurity (FC2): Capture-the-Flag (CTF) Scenario-based Cybersecurity Exercises Development, $50,000, 07/01/18-12/31/19. Role: Principal Investigator.
- The Blavatnik Interdisciplinary Cyber Research Center (ICRC) at Tel Aviv University, A machine learning collaborative study of language-action cues in deceptive communication, $79,826 (equivalent to $NIS312,000), 01/01/16-12/15/16. Activity report. Role: Co-Principal Investigator.
- National Science Foundation, I-CORPS: Market Impact Identification of Dyadic Attribution Model for Disposition Assessment Using Online Games, 1505195, $50,000, 12/15/14-12/31/16. Role: Principal Investigator.
- Florida Center for Cybersecurity, FC2: A Sociotechnical Approach to Lawful Interception and Computational Assessment of Information Behavior to Protect against Insider Threat, $25,000, 03/01/15-10/31/16. Role: Principal Investigator.
- Florida State University (ITS-181006): Development and implementation of cybersecurity virtual lab, $21,035, 03/01/15-02/28/16. Role: Principal Investigator.
- National Science Foundation (SaTC-1347113/Ho and 1347120/Hancock), EAGER: Collaborative: Language-action causal graphs for trustworthiness attribution in computer-mediated communication, $199,998, 09/01/13-08/31/15. Role: Principal Investigator.
- Florida State University Planning Grant (PG) Award, $13,000, 12/01/13-11/30/14. Role: Principal Investigator.
- Florida State University First Year Assistant Professor (FYAP) Award, $20,000, 05/10/12-08/06/13. Role: Principal Investigator.
- Drexel University Research and Scholarship Incentive Grants (R-SIG), $5,000, 2010-2012. Role: Principal Investigator.
- (ISC)2 Scholarship, $25,000, 2004-2006. Role: Scholarship Awardee.
- R.O.C. Ministry of National Defense 3-Year Award on VPN, CA, Firewall & Policy Management Technology Transfer, $1M, 1999-2003, ($303,000, 1999-2000 1st year). Role: Technology Director.
Shuyuan’s professional industry experience in information systems security (ISS) encompasses ten years of securing E-commerce systems with public key infrastructure, virtual private networks, systems engineering of role-based access control, policy-based integrated firewall, intrusion detection systems and network security. Shuyuan designed an enterprise information security architecture (EISA) called SIMPL/E (secure information management platform and environment) for a government client. She worked with a team to build a Security Operations Center for the military. She completed a large-scale virtual private network technology transfer project for a military research center.
Expertnet Profile