Our Team

Staff

Nickolas Vance

Director of Operations, DTI Lab
Sr Social Media & Data Analyst, DTI Lab

Nick leads the data analytics and innovation development teams for the Data and Technology Innovation (DTI) Lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Nick has a B.A. in communication and an M.S in information sciences both from the University of Illinois. He has expertise in data analytics, technology prototyping, software development and social media analytics.

Curtis Donelson

Data Analyst, DTI Lab
Alexa Project Lead

Curt is a data analyst with the Data and Technology Innovation Lab. His background is in behavioral health decision-making, with B.S. degrees in Psychology and Biology. He is currently working towards an M.S. in Data Science and performs machine learning and data visualizations in the DTI Lab. He is also the lead developer on the Alexa skills project.

Chieh-Li “Julian” Chin

Data Analyst, DTI Lab
Research Manager, iSchool

Julian Chin is a data analyst at the Data and Technology Innovation Lab. She is also a research manager at the Social Computing Lab led by Professor Jana Diesner in the School of Information Sciences (iSchool). She has a B.S. in Business Administration, an M.S. in Library and Information Sciences, and an M.S. in Computer Science. She is experienced in software development, web development, and data analysis. Her research interests focus on data ethics and regulations in research practices in the area of responsible computing.

Hannah Christensen

Data Analyst, DTI Lab

Hannah Christensen is a data analyst at the Data and Technology Innovation Lab. She has a B.A. in Education and an M.S. in Library and Information Sciences from the School of Information Sciences (iSchool) at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests focus on student success. She has experience in data analytics, prototyping, and usability testing.

Yoon Lee

Data Engineer, DTI Lab

Yoon is a data engineer at the Data and Technology Innovation Lab. Yoon has over 15 years of software development experiences and played role as a Develops with Scrum agile framework. Yoon has a B.A. in management information systems and an M.S in information science.

Chen Wang

Research Programmer, NCSA

Chen Wang is a research programmer at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and works on development projects for the DTI Lab. Chen has a B.S. and an M.S. in Atmospheric Sciences, and a M.S. in Bioenergy. She is experienced in software development, web development, and data analysis. Chen is the lead developer of the tool SMILE (social media analytics tool) within the Social Media Macroscope.

Joseph T. Yun, Ph.D

Research Assistant Professor, Department of Accountancy
Director, Data Science Research Service, Geis College of Business
Faculty Affiliate, DTI Lab

Dr. Yun has a B.S in computer science, an M.S. in advertising, and a PhD in Informatics. His research is focused on computational business and the technologies that surround it. He currently works at the Gies College of Business incorporating data science and large-scale computational systems into business research and teaching. Dr. Yun is the principal investigator of the Social Media Macroscope, an open research environment for social media analytics. Dr. Yun recently co-founded Marketing AI Partners (MAP) at the U of Illinois Research Park. MAP is a startup company focused on helping brands and agencies incorporate data science into their businesses. His professional website can be found at www.josephtyun.com.