Sources say the cybersecurity professor faces a Chinese-funded investigation before disappearing.
Jason Covert, one of the lawyers representing Wang Xiaowang, whose wife, Nianli MA, is a library system analyst, whose staff profiles were also deleted by Indiana University, told Wired that both Wang and Wired were “safe” and that neither they were arrested. Their legal team has not yet realized any pending criminal charges against them, and although the couple’s attorneys have seen a Justice Department search warrant, Covert said they have not received a copy of the affidavit to establish a possible cause.
Wang is considered one of the top researchers in the fields of privacy, data security and biometric privacy, and his sudden disappearance shocked many of his academic companions. Wang joined IU in 2004 as the chief investigator of the Distributed Confidential Computing Center he established in 2022, which removed Bio on the IU website has received nearly $3 million in grants since the National Science Foundation (NSF). As part of his application for NSF funding and other U.S. federal research grants, Wang will be required to disclose other grants he has received or is currently under review.
On March 28, the FBI searched for two home addresses related to Wang. On the same day, IU also reportedly terminated Wang’s work through an email sent by Provost Rahul Shrivastav, which had been obtained Wired and first reported by Indiana Daily Student. The email also said that it is understood that Wang recently accepted a position at a university in Singapore, which also repeated a detail in the statement attributed to Lee.
The statement said Wang planned to start at the University of Singapore on June 1, 2025, which he asked for a leave of absence from Indiana University in early March. However, IU’s response was “let him take administrative leave, delete his IU homepage and disable the IU email address”.
Wang’s new job offer “it doesn’t matter anyway [the] Tanford claims that the next school year will not prove to be fired. If the government can fire tenured professors without due process and violate the policies approved by our trustees, then each of us is not safe. ” he said.
An IU spokesman declined to comment, declined to answer detailed questions about Unired, which involved previous exchanges between the university and Wang and the school’s decision to fire him.
“Indiana University has recently become aware of the federal investigation into Indiana University’s faculty and staff,” University spokesman Mark Bode told Wired in an emailed statement. “At the FBI’s direction, Indiana University will not publicly comment on the investigation. Nor will Indiana University publicly comment on the person’s status, according to Indiana University’s practice.”
