yuxi wu
Distinguished Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Northeastern University
502-9 @ 177 Huntington
email: firstname at ccs.neu.edu
bluesky + google scholar + linkedin + CV
hi, i’m yuxi
I am a Distinguished Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Northeastern University’s Khoury College of Computer Sciences. My work sits at the intersection of usable privacy and security, human-computer interaction, and design.
I research ways to help people engage in and challenge discourse about privacy harms:
How do people talk about privacy harms, individually and collectively?
How can we transform how people talk about privacy harms?
How can talking about privacy harms transform people?
What are we, as researchers and designers, still missing from the conversation?
I conduct mixed-methods research on such collective action through creating design probes and design fiction. I publish at top venues in human-computer interaction (CHI, CSCW), security and privacy (IEEE S&P), and AI ethics (FAccT). My research has been supported by a Georgia Tech President’s Fellowship and a JP Morgan Chase AI Research Fellowship.
At Northeastern, I work closely with Alexandra To and Ada Lerner. I earned my PhD in Computer Science in 2024 from Georgia Tech’s School of Interactive Computing, where I studied human-computer interaction and computer-supported cooperative work under the co-advisement of Sauvik Das and Keith Edwards. Prior to my PhD, I worked with Blase Ur at the University of Chicago.
publications
- Provoking Transformation in Usable Privacy and Security: Designing for Enduring End-User Motivation Beyond Expert Compliance
Yuxi Wu, Alexandra To, Emilee Rader, W. Keith Edwards, Sauvik Das.
Forthcoming in New Security Paradigms Workshop, 2025. - Navigating Security and Privacy Threats in Homeless Service Provision
Yuxi Wu*, Ruoxi Zhang*, Shiyue Liu, Mufei Hei, Aidan Hong, Jeremy J. Northup, Calla Kainaroi, Fei Fang, Hong Shen.
Forthcoming at 34th USENIX Security Symposium, 2025. - Design(ing) Fictions for Collective Civic Reporting of Privacy Harms
Yuxi Wu, William Agnew, W. Keith Edwards, Sauvik Das.
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (CSCW), 2025. - Modeling End-User Affective Discomfort With Mobile App Permissions Across Physical Contexts
Yuxi Wu, Jacob Logas, Devansh Ponda, Julia Haines, Jiaming Li, Jeffrey Nichols, W. Keith Edwards, Sauvik Das.
Symposium on Usable Security and Privacy (USEC), 2025. - On-demand RFID: Improving Privacy, Security, and User Trust in RFID Activation through Physically-Intuitive Design
Youngwook Do, Tingyu Cheng, Yuxi Wu, Hyunjoo Oh, Daniel J. Wilson, Gregory D. Abowd, Sauvik Das.
Symposium on Usable Security and Privacy (USEC), 2025. - The Slow Violence of Surveillance Capitalism: How Online Behavioral Advertising Harms People
Yuxi Wu, Sydney Bice, W. Keith Edwards, Sauvik Das.
ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT), 2023. - SoK: Social Cybersecurity
Yuxi Wu, W. Keith Edwards, Sauvik Das.
IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (SP), 2022. - "A reasonable thing to ask for": Towards a Unified Voice in Privacy Collective Action
Yuxi Wu, W. Keith Edwards, Sauvik Das.
ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 2022. - Privacy for the people? Exploring collective action as a mechanism to shift power to consumers in end-user privacy
Sauvik Das, W. Keith Edwards, DeBrae Kennedy-Mayo, Peter Swire, and Yuxi Wu.
IEEE Security & Privacy 19, no. 5 (2021): 66-70. - Smart Webcam Cover: Exploring the Design of an Intelligent Webcam Cover to Improve Usability and Trust
Youngwook Do, Jung Wook Park, Yuxi Wu, Avinandan Basu, Dingtian Zhang, Gregory D. Abowd, and Sauvik Das.
Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (IMWUT), 2021. - Exploring the Utility versus Intrusiveness of Dynamic Audience Selection on Facebook
Sindhu Kiranmai Ernala, Stephanie S. Yang, Yuxi Wu, Rachel Chen, Kristen Wells, and Sauvik Das.
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (CSCW), 2021.
*Best Paper Honorable Mention. - Your Secrets Are Safe: How Browsers' Explanations Impact Misconceptions about Private Browsing Mode
Yuxi Wu, Panya Gupta, Miranda Wei, Yasemin Acar, Sascha Fahl, and Blase Ur.
The Web Conference (WWW), 2018.
teaching
College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology
TA, Human-Computer Interaction. Fall 2023.
Co-Instructor, Usable Privacy and Security. Spring 2023.
TA, Computing, Society, and Professionalism. Fall 2022.
TA, User Interface Design. Summer 2021.
Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago
TA, Data Skills for Public Policy (R). Winter 2018.
TA, Introduction to Programming for Public Policy (Python). Fall 2017.