Yang Zhang

Yang Zhang is a Teaching Assistant Professor at the School of Information Sciences (iSchool) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Notre Dame and is affiliated with the Social Sensing & Intelligence Lab at UIUC as a Senior Researcher. His research focuses on Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, emphasizing collaboration between humans and AI to enhance model performance, fairness, and accountability.

• Education: Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering, University of Notre Dame; First Class Scholarship, Wuhan University

Yang’s work integrates Crowd Intelligence to optimize AI models for applications in disaster response, smart urban sensing, and social impact-aware systems. His recent publications explore hybrid learning frameworks, neural architecture search, and hyperparameter optimization. Yang has received multiple accolades, including a Best Paper Award at ACM/IEEE ASONAM 2022 and a Data Science Scholar Fellowship from Indiana University.

• Scientific Awards: Best Paper Award (ASONAM 2022), Best Paper Honorable Mention (SMARTCOMP 2022), Outstanding Graduate Research Assistant (Notre Dame), Video Presentation Award (IWQoS 2020), IEEE Student Travel Awards (BigData 2018, 2019), Data Science Scholar Fellowship (Indiana University), First Class Scholarship (Wuhan University)

Yang is actively involved in graduate education as a Graduate Faculty member at UIUC. He has cohosted international scholars through the Bolashak International Scholarship Program and been recognized for excellence in teaching. His collaborations span institutions like Argonne National Laboratory, where he served as a W. J. Cody Research Associate.