Shuyuan H. Metcalfe, Ph.D. 
Associate Professor | Florida State University
Trusted CI Fellow, The NSF Cybersecurity Center of Excellence
AIS Distinguished Member, CISSP, CSX, CRISC, CISM,
MPhil, MBA, BSc
Shuyuan’s research focuses on trusted human-computer interactions, specifically addressing issues of cyber insider threats and automated detection of computer-mediated deception and deepfakes. Shuyuan’s theory of trustworthiness attribution integrates social psychologies on trust and attribution, for insider threat detection as supported by cyber infrastructure. Shuyuan further develops the framework for a dyadic attribution model to assess human trustworthiness in sophisticated online communication environments. Shuyuan designs online games as an experiment protocol for investigating human deception and betrayal in virtual organizations. Shuyuan’s sociotechnical research approach utilizes social-psychological theories along with pragmatic viewpoints on language-action cues to create an innovative methodology for using artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) modeling of next generation behavioral inference systems to make sense of 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.
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 currently holds a US patent US-17/162,468 on systems and methods for detecting deception in computer-mediated communication, and also has two copyrighted inventions; Veracity AI truth disclosure against adversarial image manipulation; Pandemic Self Defense (TechID 21-003) mHealth intervention that helps mobile phone users with situational awareness during a pandemic.
Keywords for Shuyuan’s research: Trusted human-computer interactions; cyber insider threats; computer-mediated deception; deepfakes; sociotechnical systems; online games for research; language-action cues; information use and seeking behavior; deceptive information behavior; trustworthiness attribution; dyadic attribution model; artificial intelligence; machine/deep learning; computational modeling for complex trust and online deception.
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Shuyuan teaches Information Systems Security, Information Systems Research, Information systems Management, Cyber Defense Operations, Incident Response, Disaster Recovery, Computer Auditing, Intrusion Detection, Digital and Cyber Forensics, Access Control Models for Intrusion Prevention, and Risk Assessment and Management.
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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 (SOC) for the military. She completed a large-scale virtual private network technology transfer project for a military research center. Click here for Shuyuan’s curriculum vitae.