I am a third-year Ph.D. student in the School of Information at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where I am fortunate to be advised by Prof. Florian Schaub and Prof. Christopher Brooks.

My research sits at the intersection of human-centered security, human-AI interaction, and usable privacy and security. I am especially interested in how people make sense of complex systems, negotiate privacy and control with other stakeholders, and adapt their behavior as AI systems become more autonomous. Methodologically, I use mixed methods including large-scale surveys, vignette experiments, statistical modeling, and qualitative analysis.

I hold an M.Sc. in Applied Psychology from Zhejiang University and a B.Sc. in Psychology from Southwest University. Previously I was a research assistant at Johns Hopkins University with Prof. Yaxing Yao. I have also been fortunate to work alongside Prof. Danny Yuxing Huang at New York University and Prof. Haojian Jin at UC San Diego.

Research Overview
01
Human-Centered Security

How people perceive, reason about, and respond to security and privacy threats in everyday and multi-stakeholder settings such as smart homes, short-term rentals, and shared devices, and how those perceptions shape the protections they actually adopt.

02
Human-AI Interaction

How people understand, trust, disclose to, and make decisions with conversational and agentic AI systems, and how they keep awareness, agency, and meaningful control as AI moves from answering prompts to acting on their behalf.

03
Usable Privacy and Security

Designing privacy notices, controls, and negotiation mechanisms that people can actually use, grounded in large-scale surveys, vignette experiments, and qualitative studies so that protections fit real practices rather than idealized ones.

News

Selected Publications

Privacy negotiation routes for camera-equipped smart home devices in Airbnb
USENIX Security 2026
Zixin Wang, Sunyup Park, Haojian Jin, Yaxing Yao.
35th USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 2026).
AI assistants adoption
CHI 2026
Yuting Yang, Zixin Wang, Rongjun Ma, Florian Schaub.
ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2026).
Heatmap of participants' comfort levels across smart home devices
USENIX Security 2023
Zixin Wang, Danny Yuxing Huang, Yaxing Yao.
32nd USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 2023), pp. 535–551.
VPAWatcher browser extension interface in idle and monitoring states
USEC 2024
Tu Le, Zixin Wang, Danny Yuxing Huang, Yaxing Yao, Yuan Tian.
Symposium on Usable Security and Privacy (USEC 2024).

Education

University of Michigan logo
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Ph.D. in Information Science
2024.08 - Present
Zhejiang University emblem
Zhejiang University
M.Ed. in Applied Psychology
2021.09 - 2024.06
Thesis: Empowering Users to Navigate Privacy in Self-Disclosure with Large Language Models
Southwest University emblem
Southwest University
B.Sc. in Psychology
2017.09 - 2021.06
Thesis: Socioeconomic Status and Financial Literacy Among High School Students

Teaching

Awards

  • 2026: GREPSEC Student Grant
  • 2026: USENIX Security Student Grant, USENIX Association
  • 2025: Rackham Graduate Student Research Grant (~$1,500), University of Michigan
  • 2024: Excellent Graduate, Zhejiang University
  • 2021: Excellent Graduate (City-Level), Chongqing
  • 2020: Science Scholarship (~$3,000), Southwest University
  • 2020: National Scholarship (~$1,200), Southwest University

Academic Service

  • Conference reviewer: CHI 2026, CHI LBW 2023–2025, CSCW 2024
  • Journal reviewer: Information, Communication & Society

Last updated: 7 September 2026