Recently, Pitt IT’s Joe Yun transitioned his role to Director of AI Enablement. His goal is to transform how AI is integrated into the University's core mission to engage in research, teaching, learning, and outreach.

Developing a Passion for Technology

Yun’s story began as a young kid in Chicago, where he was introduced to technology in an unexpected way. Desperately hoping to receive the original Nintendo game system for Christmas, like many of his friends, he instead found a Radio Shack TRS-80, a precursor to personal computers, in the Nintendo-sized box under the tree. Initially disappointed, he quickly became captivated by computers. His father’s foresight that computers would be the future set Yun on a path that led him to major in computer science at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign (UIUC).

His academic journey took a fortuitous turn when he met UIUC’s new CIO, Mark Henderson. Yun was a campus technology consultant at the time. Henderson confidently predicted that Yun would become one of the world’s leading experts in understanding the impact of social media through data analytics. Yun proved him right. Pursuing a master's degree in advertising, with a focus on social psychology, and then a PhD in informatics, he explored the potential to understand human psychology through people’s social media content—a field that was not being deeply researched yet. “I’ve always been interested in why we are so influenced by messaging, and I had figured out a way to better understand that phenomenon through data,” Yun explains.

His research led him to delve into statistics, data science, and machine learning. “I had to discover a new way to convert human language into a machine-interpretable and computable format in order to analyze social media data to understand peoples’ psychologies,” he elaborates. These skills are also the technology that enables generative AI today and led him to his current position.

Heading to Pittsburgh for an AI Revolution

Yun’s academic journey eventually led to an opportunity to move to Singapore, a pretty cool place to be an academic. But as he and his wife were preparing to relocate their three children to Asia, he got a call from his old mentor and friend, Henderson, who had recently become CIO at Pitt. Henderson insisted on flying Yun out to Pittsburgh, despite his plans. Yun was surprised to discover that Pittsburgh was a vibrant city, not an aging steel town. More importantly, he was captivated by Henderson’s vision for Pittsburgh as a future hub for AI, and before he knew it, Yun found his inner Yinzer.

Yun was recently tapped as the new Director of AI Enablement for Pitt IT. “My job is to figure out how we can enable Pitt’s transformation as AI disrupts higher education. We don’t have the financial resources that the business world does. We have to be smarter and more innovative with regards to adopting AI at Pitt.” Yun is spearheading projects like PittGPT, a solution offering ChatGPT-like functionality to the campus at a fraction of the cost, while ensuring enhanced security, privacy, and customization.

A Game-Changing Vision for AI at Pitt

Yun is especially excited about Pitt IT’s collaboration with Amazon Web Services to launch the University of Pittsburgh Health Sciences and Sports Analytics Cloud Innovation Center, powered by AWS. The first academic CIC on the East Coast, it focuses on health sciences and sports analytics — areas where AI can make a meaningful difference. “One of the areas in which AI can most directly affect society today is in health. There are so many applications that AI can support, and Pitt is one of the leading global centers of health research and delivery,” Yun explains. His hope is that the CIC and other investments in AI can accelerate those efforts. Also a sports and stats enthusiast (though he rarely has time for golf these days), he sees immense potential in using AI and data analytics in Athletics.

Henderson and Yun, along with many corporate and government leaders across the region, envision Pittsburgh becoming the epicenter of applied AI, driven by the hardworking ethic of its people. Yun sees it as the new steel, poised to build the digital world. His goal is to empower individuals and businesses across the region to harness these technologies in both personal and professional spheres, remaking Pittsburgh into a hub of societal growth.