Alvin Chin, PhD

• Clinical Assistant Professor, Dept of Information and Decision Sciences, UIC College of Business Administration, University of Illinois Chicago, August 2026–Present
• Visiting Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Information and Decision Sciences, UIC College of Business Administration, University of Illinois Chicago, August 2025–August 2026
• Research Scientist, R&D, Discovery Partners Institute, University of Illinois System, December 2023–August 2025
• Principal Data Scientist, Data Science, Freight Brokerage Technology, RXO Inc. and XPO Logistics Inc., Chicago, IL, Sept. 2022–June 2023
• IT Innovation and Research Engineer, BMW IT Research Center, BMW Manufacturing, BMW Group Inc., Greenville, SC, July–August 2022
• AI & Emerging Tech Researcher, IT Innovation & Research Silicon Valley, BMW Group Tech Office USA, BMW of North America, BMW Group Inc., November 2020–June 2022
• Adjunct Professor, Department of Computing & Digital Media, DePaul University, Chicago, IL, January 2019–December 2023
• Senior Researcher, Machine Learning, BMW Technology Corporation, BMW of North America, BMW Group Inc., April 2015–November 2020
• Senior Researcher, Xpress Internet Services China Team, Nokia and Microsoft, Beijing, China, September 2012–September 2014
• Senior Researcher, Mobile Social Experiences Team, Nokia Research Center, Beijing, China, January 2010–August 2012
• Member of Research Staff, Service Experiences Team and Mobile Social Networking Team, Nokia Research Center, Beijing, China, July 2008 –December 2009

Classes Taught

• IDS 200 Introduction to Business Management Systems
• IDS 314 AI Essentials for Business
• IDS 460 Causal Inference
• IDS 494 AI Essentials for Business

Research Interests

Responsible AI, Generative AI, mobile social networking, ubiquitous computing, social computing, causal machine learning, machine learning, data science and analytics, big data, cloud computing, metaverse, recommendations, computer-supported collaborative work, human-computer interaction, mobile computing

Awards and Affiliations

• Outstanding Service Award, IEEE Region 4, December 2024.
• Best Project Award, IEEE Volunteer Leadership Program 2023 (VoLT), December 2023.
• Distinguished Officer Award, IEEE Chicago, October 2020 (for outstanding contributions in volunteering in the IEEE Chicago Section as Chair of IEEE Vehicular Technology Society Chicago, Chair of IEEE Computer Society Chicago, and Chair of the IEEE Chicago 126th anniversary fair).
• University of Toronto Arbor Award, University of Toronto, October 2020 (for outstanding alumni service).
• Nokia Research Center research publications award for China, India and Africa region, Nokia Research Center, Nov. 16, 2011.
• Best Paper Award, IEEE CPSCom 2011, Dalian, China, October 2011.
• Best Trial Award, Nokia Find & Connect, UIC/ATC 2010 Conference, October 2010.
• Nokia Workplace Resources Quality Award for Nokia Find & Connect, Nokia, June 2010.
• Nokia Research Award, Nokia Research Center, March 2009.
• IEEE Senior Member
• ACM Senior Member

Chin, A., Huang, B., Chan, J., Garcia, J., Yu, P., & Leicht, K. (2025). Ephemeral social networks: Capturing proximity social networking at in-person events. In Proceedings of the 7th International Workshop on Smart Living with IoT, Cloud and Edge Computing (SLICE 2025), co-located with the IEEE International Conference on Mobile Ad-Hoc and Smart Systems (MASS 2025), Chicago, IL, United States.

Chin, A., Chan, J., Garcia, J., Barve, A., Leicht, K., & Yu, P. (2025). Improving social connections through mobile social networks. In 2025 IEEE 49th Annual Computers, Software, and Applications Conference (COMPSAC) (pp. 1770–1775). IEEE.

Chin, A., Leicht, K., Yu, P., & Gomez-Zara, D. (2025). Ephemeral social networking: Connecting people from offline to online. In C. Stephanidis, M. Antona, S. Ntoa, & G. Salvendy (Eds.), HCI International 2025 Posters (Communications in Computer and Information Science, Vol. 2523). Springer.

Chin, A., Varshney, L., Singh, G., Riel, J., Avadhanam, R., & Sachdev, V. (2025). A conceptual framework for guiding the workforce on using responsible AI. In M. Cheong, J. Herkert, Q. Zhu, & H. A. Love (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2025 IEEE International Symposium on Ethics in Engineering, Science, and Technology (ETHICS 2025): Emerging Technologies, Ethics, and Social Justice. IEEE.

Chin, A. (2013). Ephemeral social networks. In Mobile social networking: An innovative approach. Springer.

Majid, A., & Chin, A. (2026). AI for youth: Adapting responsibly for learning. In Proceedings of the 16th IEEE Integrated STEM Education Conference (ISEC 2026). IEEE.

Addadzi-Koom, N., & Chin, A. (2026). AI-powered connection: Solving the handshake problem to increase human connection by 12×. HCI International 2026 Posters. (Accepted).

Zhuang, H., Tang, J., Tang, W., Lou, T., Chin, A., & Wang, X. (2012). Actively learning to infer social ties. Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery, 25(2), 270–297.

Chin, A., Xu, B., Wang, H., Chang, L., Wang, H., & Zhu, L. (2012). Connecting people through physical proximity and physical resources at a conference. ACM Transactions on Intelligent Systems and Technology, Special Issue on Intelligent Systems for Socially Aware Computing.

• Conference Chair, IEEE Conference on Real-Time Communications at IIT 2026, Chicago, 2026.
• Conference Committee Member, Chicago AI Week 2026, AI 2030, March – June 2026.
• Posters Associate Chair, ACM CHI 2026 Posters, ACM Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (CHI) 2026, Barcelona, Spain, January – April 2026.
• Advisory Chair and Papers Chair, IEEE Region 4 Nexus Student Leadership Conference, Illinois Institute of Technology, January 2026 – April 2026.
• Vice-Chair, Institutional Collaboration subgroup, IEEE Standards P3722 Working Group on Responsible AI in Education, January 2026 – present.
• Student Judge, Presidential AI Challenge, January 2026 – April 2026.
• Member-at-Large, Member and Geographic Activities (MGA) / Technical Activities (TA) Joint Chapter Support Committee, IEEE MGA, January 2026 – present.
• Conference Committee Member, 4th AI Symposium in Business: Responsible AI and Governance, UIC Business, January 2026 - May 2026.
• Advisory Council Member, Chicago AI Council, AI 2030, June 2025 – present.
• Technical Program Committee Member, IEEE ETHICS 2025 Conference, Northwestern University, Evanston, June 6-8, 2025.
• Working Group Member, Technology Working Group, Institute of Government and Public Affairs, University of Illinois System, May 2025 – present.
• Advisory Chair, IEEE Chicago, January 2025 – present.
• Chair, Professional and Education Products, Professional and Educational Activities Board, IEEE Computer Society, April 2025 – present.
• Region Support Chair, IEEE Region 4, January 2025 – present.
• Chair, Technology Club, The Metropolitan, Chicago, USA, January 2024 – present.

PhD, Computer Science, University of Toronto, 2009
MASc, Software Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo, 2004
BASc, Computer Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo, 1999

• Certified Responsible AI Leadership Program, AI 2030

• Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineers (IEEE)
• Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
• Data Administration Management Association (DAMA)

• A.Chin, “Conceptual Framework for Responsible AI in Industry”, Invited talk at SEED Masterclass, Webinar, March 10, 2026,
• A.Chin, “Conceptual Framework for Responsible AI in Industry”, Invited talk at Presidential AI Challenge Webinar. Presidential AI Challenge, AI.gov, Webinar, November 25, 2025.
• A.Chin, “Exploring the Intersection of AI, Education and Innovation”, Invited talk at AI Collective Chicago: AI and Future of Careers, AI Collective UIC Chapter, Chicago, IL, October 27, 2025.
• A.Chin, “Connecting People from Offline to Online Through Ephemeral Social Networks”, Invited keynote at IEEE Electro-Information Technology (EIT) 2025 Conference, Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, Indiana, May 31, 2025.

• Ephemeral social networking
• Evaluating AI credentials for responsible AI
• Policy for Responsible AI Research, Innovation, and Education (PRAIRIE)
• Testing LLMs for hallucination in responsible Ai