Xiong is originally from
Wuhan. She earned a bachelor's degree in computer science in 1997 at the
University of Science and Technology of China, and came to
Johns Hopkins University for doctoral study in computer science, but instead left the program in 1999 with a master's degree. After working as a software engineer from 1999 to 2001, she returned to graduate study, and completed her Ph.D. in computer science in 2005 at
Georgia Tech. Her doctoral dissertation,
Resilient Reputation and Trust Management: Models and Techniques, was supervised by
Ling Liu. She joined Emory University as an assistant professor of mathematics and computer science in 2005. She was promoted to associate professor, and added an affiliation with the Emory Department of Biomedical Informatics, in 2012. From 2015 to 2018 she was Winship Distinguished Research Professor, and in 2016 she was promoted to full professor. In 2018 the Emory Department of Mathematics and Computer Science split into two separate departments, and Xiong remained on the computer science side of the split, subsequently becoming Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Computer Science. ==Recognition==