Wanheng Hu is an Embedded Ethics Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University’s McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society and Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI). He spent the 2022-23 academic year as a research fellow at the Program of Science, Technology and Society at Harvard Kennedy School. Wanheng’s research lies at the intersection of social studies of science, medicine, and technology, critical data/algorithm studies, media studies, and public engagement with science. His dissertation ethnographically examines the cultivation of credible machine learning models in complex expert practices, with an empirical focus on image-based diagnostics within the Chinese medical AI industry. Another line of his work focuses on the democratic engagement of ordinary citizens in technoscientific affairs, particularly concerning AI development. His research was supported by the National Science Foundation, the China Times Cultural Foundation, and a Hu Shih Fellowship and has been published in venues such as the Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Machine Learning and Public Understanding of Science.

Wanheng received his Ph.D. in Science and Technology Studies from Cornell University, where he also completed a minor in Media Studies and remains an active member of the Artificial Intelligence, Policy, and Practice (AIPP) initiative. Before Cornell, Wanheng studied at Peking University, where he obtained an M.Phil. in Philosophy of Science and Technology, a B.L. in Sociology, and a B.Sc. in Biomedical English. He is currently an affiliate at the Data & Society Research Institute.