Nianli Ma said she was home alone March 28, 2025, when the FBI came to her and her husband Xiaofeng Wang's house in Carmel, Indiana. Ma wrote in a Signal message to the Indiana Daily Student that she never expected something like that would happen to her family.
“When I opened the door and saw a large group of FBI agents with guns drawn, I froze,” Ma wrote. “It did not feel real. It felt surreal, frightening, and deeply upsetting.”
It’s been more than a year since the FBI searched the couple’s Carmel and Bloomington homes for reasons that weren’t confirmed until warrants were unsealed in October. It’s been more than a year since Wang, a tenured professor at Indiana University, was terminated with no option for rehire. It’s been more than a year since Ma and Wang’s story received international coverage.
Yet, after more than a year of legal battles, Ma wrote she still carries a “constant feeling of uncertainty.”
Who are Nianli Ma and Xiaofeng Wang?
Ma worked as a lead systems analyst and programmer at IU Libraries until IU terminated her last March.
Wang, her husband, worked as a computer science professor at the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering since 2004. He was also listed on an archived webpage as the Luddy associate dean for research and had served on research projects totaling nearly $23 million by 2022.
Timeline of major events
IU asked Wang for details in December 2024 regarding his mention in a 2017-18 Chinese grant that was not disclosed to IU, according to a document obtained by the IDS written by a close collaborator. The university informed Wang it would investigate further last February.
Wang then notified the university in early March that he had accepted a position at a university in Singapore, now-known to be Nanyang Technological University. He joined the university in July, according to his university-associated profile.
The FBI arrived at Ma and Wang’s two homes March 28, 2025, and officers were seen carrying boxes of evidence out of the homes. Wang received a termination notice via email from former IU Bloomington provost Rahul Shrivastav that same day.
Ma was terminated from her position at the university four days prior.
Stanford University cybersecurity scholar Riana Pfefferkorn filed a motion April 1, 2025, to unseal the warrants used to execute the searches.
The warrants used to search the couple’s homes were unsealed Oct. 3, 2025. The warrant revealed the search was based on accusations against Wang for false statements, theft or bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds and wire fraud.
One year later: An interview with Ma
Ma agreed to a written interview with the IDS and said she is still living in the United States, despite Wang’s job as a professor, cybersecurity associate vice president and head of the computing division at NTU in Singapore.
“After such a difficult year, I am simply trying to take things one step at a time and move toward a more stable life,” Ma wrote.
When she first saw the FBI at her front door, Ma wrote she was in disbelief.
“How had something that was being addressed through normal university procedures turned into this?” she recalled thinking. “Even now, it is hard for me to understand why such force was used against a family like ours.”
The FBI searches brought media attention to the couple the same day. Ma said she didn’t think the public understood the case revolved around a real family, not just names in headlines.
“People may see the legal case or the public attention, but they do not always see the daily emotional strain, the financial pressure, and the constant uncertainty that a family carries for such a long time,” Ma wrote.
Wang worked for IU for more than 20 years before his firing. Ma said she used to believe the university she knew for so long stood for values like liberty, fairness and integrity. But that is no longer the case after seeing a “willingness” to set aside procedures when “inconvenient.”
“My husband was treated as though he were guilty before any proper investigation had taken place, and both of us were treated not as long-serving members of the university community, but as problems to be removed,” Ma wrote.
Ma said she didn’t think her job would be impacted by the university looking into Wang’s research. She said her own termination felt “unjust,” and that receiving the notice made her feel as though she was not being “seen or treated as an individual.”
She still fears the intensity of investigation conducted was impacted by her and her husband’s nationality. One of the most striking things about the university’s role in the investigation, Ma said, was the “lack of trust” given to her husband, a tenured professor.
“It went so far as to impose termination by association for my employment and bypassed due process, without regard for the profound and lasting harm this would cause our family,” Ma wrote. “That kind of distrust toward members of its own community is deeply unsettling.”
Ma said she and Wang lived in Bloomington for 22 years before the investigation.
“For most of that time, we believed we belonged to a community guided by fairness, decency, and mutual respect,” Ma wrote. “It has been painful to discover how fragile that sense of belonging can be. For ordinary people like us, this is not something one simply leaves behind.”
Ma said she hopes people still pay attention to and reflect on her family's case. That, she said, would be how cases like this can be avoided. The reminder of the investigation is constant, Ma said.
“It reaches into every part of daily life and weighs on the whole family,” she wrote. “Even so, we have had to keep going, day by day. We still hope this will end soon, so that we can begin to live a normal life again.”
