Wanheng Hu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Peking University. Trained as a scholar of Science and Technology Studies (STS), his research examines the epistemic, ethical, and regulatory dimensions of artificial intelligence, with a particular focus on machine learning in medicine. His broader scholarship engages the social studies of science, medicine, and technology; the sociology of expertise; critical data and algorithm studies; media studies; and public engagement with science. 

His current book project, Reassembling Expertise: Credible Knowledge and Machine Learning in Medical Imaging, is an ethnographic study of the Chinese medical AI industry. Drawing on multi-sited fieldwork, the project analyzes how, and in what sense, human medical expertise is translated into AI systems and how the credibility of these systems is negotiated across industrial, clinical, and regulatory settings. His work has been supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation, the China Times Cultural Foundation, and a Hu Shih Fellowship, and has appeared in venues such as Public Understanding of Science and The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Machine Learning.

Wanheng received his Ph.D. in Science & Technology Studies, with a minor in Media Studies, from Cornell University in 2024. He previously received an M.A. in Philosophy of Science and Technology, a B.S. in Biomedical English, and an LL.B. in Sociology from Peking University. Before returning to Peking University, he was a postdoctoral Embedded Ethics Fellow at Stanford University from 2024 to 2026, jointly appointed by the McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society and the Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI). He also taught in Stanford’s Program in Science, Technology, and Society. He was previously a Fellow with the Program on Science, Technology and Society at the Harvard Kennedy School, and currently a non-residential Affiliate at Data & Society Research Institute.