He was among the many Google employees who contributed to response efforts after the earthquake of March 11. Ping has been the technical lead of the Google Person Finder project since its inception after the Haiti earthquake in 2010, and he also coordinates the development of the missing person data standard known as PFIF, which he initiated after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Ping was raised in Winnipeg, Canada. He received his B. A. Sc. at the University of Waterloo and completed his Ph. D. at UC Berkeley before joining Google in 2008. His research interests have included human factors, computer security, bioinformatics, electronic voting, electoral systems, and information visualization.