Ilmi Yoon
Teaching Professor, Director of Computing Programs – Silicon Valley
Research interests and focus
- Artificial intelligence
- Computational biology
- Human-computer interaction
- Machine learning
Ilmi Yoon’s research centers on developing inclusive technologies that bridge the gap between cutting-edge AI systems and underserved communities. Her work focuses particularly on enhancing the accessibility of video content through the design and implementation of automated captioning and description systems.
Current projects
- Drone Ranger: An intelligent, automated drone system that uses AI and autonomous flight to non-lethally deter deer and other wildlife from residential gardens.
- Nurse Town: An AI-powered simulation platform using large language models to provide nursing students with realistic, interactive virtual patient encounters for skill development.
- YouDescribe: A platform leveraging AI and human collaboration to make short-form and user-generated videos accessible to blind and low-vision users through audio descriptions.
Education
- PhD in Computer Graphics, University of Southern California
- MS in Computer Science, University of Southern California
- BS in Computer Science, Yonsei University — South Korea
Biography
Ilmi Yoon is a teaching professor and director of computing programs at the Khoury College of Computer Sciences at Northeastern University, based in Silicon Valley.
She joined Khoury College in 2024 after more than two decades at San Francisco State University, drawn by the opportunity to engage with a new educational model that reaches a broader and more diverse student body. At Northeastern, she teaches Discrete Structures and Deep Learning, where she finds immense reward in mentoring students from their first semester and watching them flourish.
Yoon’s research focuses on human-centered AI, video accessibility, and socially responsible computing, with a commitment to increasing participation in computing among underrepresented and marginalized communities.
Outside of academia, she enjoys gardening, planting, and cooking.
Recent publications
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Root Cause Analysis Training for Healthcare Professionals With AI-Powered Virtual Simulation: A Proof-of-Concept
Citation: Yuqi Hu, Qiwen Xiong, Zhenzhen Qin, Brandon Watanabe, Yujing Wang, Mirjana Prpa, Ilmi Yoon. (2025). Root Cause Analysis Training for Healthcare Professionals With AI-Powered Virtual Simulation: A Proof-of-Concept CoRR, abs/2508.04904. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2508.04904 -
Nurse Town: An LLM-Powered Simulation Game for Nursing Education
Citation: Yuqi Hu, Qiwen Xiong, Liheng Yi, Ilmi Yoon. (2025). Nurse Town: An LLM-Powered Simulation Game for Nursing Education CAI, 215-222. https://doi.org/10.1109/CAI64502.2025.00041 -
YouDescribe: Bridging AI Efficiency and Human Insight for Scalable Audio Description
Citation: Lana Do, Sanjay Mirani, Charity Pitcher-Cooper, Xuan Duy Anh Nguyen, Alekya Bairaboina, Ilmi Yoon. (2025). YouDescribe: Bridging AI Efficiency and Human Insight for Scalable Audio Description CHIWORK (Adjunct), 10:1-10:7. https://doi.org/10.1145/3707640.3731916 -
The Benefits of Socially Responsible Computing in Early Computing Courses: A Multi-Institutional Study at Primarily Undergraduate Hispanic-Serving Institutions
Citation: Ayaan M. Kazerouni, Melissa Lee, Aleata Hubbard Cheuoua, Aakash Gautam, Sahar Hooshmand, Paul Salvador Inventado, Eun-Young Kang, Jane Lehr, Yu Sun , Kevin A. Wortman, Ilmi Yoon, Zoë J. Wood. (2025). The Benefits of Socially Responsible Computing in Early Computing Courses: A Multi-Institutional Study at Primarily Undergraduate Hispanic-Serving Institutions ACM Trans. Comput. Educ., 25, 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1145/3727988 -
Socially Responsible Computing in an Introductory Course
Citation: Aakash Gautam, Anagha Kulkarni , Sarah Hug, Jane Lehr, Ilmi Yoon. (2024). Socially Responsible Computing in an Introductory Course SIGCSE (1), 373-379. https://doi.org/10.1145/3626252.3630926 -
Validated Image Caption Rating Dataset
Citation: Lothar D. Narins, Andrew T. Scott, Aakash Gautam, Anagha Kulkarni , Mar Castanon, Benjamin Kao, Shasta Ihorn, Yue-Ting Siu, James M. Mason, Alexander Blum, Ilmi Yoon. (2023). Validated Image Caption Rating Dataset NeurIPS. http://papers.nips.cc/paper_files/paper/2023/hash/c0b91f9a3587bf35287f41dba5d20233-Abstract-Datasets_and_Benchmarks.html -
The Potential of a Visual Dialogue Agent In a Tandem Automated Audio Description System for Videos
Citation: Abigale Stangl, Shasta Ihorn, Yue-Ting Siu, Aditya Bodi, Mar Castanon, Lothar D. Narins, Ilmi Yoon. (2023). The Potential of a Visual Dialogue Agent In a Tandem Automated Audio Description System for Videos ASSETS, 32:1-32:17. https://doi.org/10.1145/3597638.3608402
