Assistant Professor JooYoung Seo has been selected as a Center for Advanced Study (CAS) Beckman Fellow for the 2026-2027 academic year. CAS is one of the most prestigious faculty recognition programs at the University of Illinois. Its primary mission is to identify and support the most productive and innovative faculty across all disciplines. CAS Fellows are nominated by their unit heads and selected by the Center's permanent faculty through a competitive review process, with final approval by the Board of Trustees.
Seo is one of four faculty CAS Beckman Fellows, a distinction awarded to early-career candidates in recognition of their unique and impactful scholarly work. The appointment grants faculty one semester of teaching release time to pursue an individual scholarly or creative project. Fellows also participate in a yearly roundtable discussion of research interests and are invited to offer a future CAS presentation.
Seo will work on the project "Bridging Visual and Nonvisual Data Insights Through AI-Powered Multimodal Data Representations." The goal of this project is to assist blind and low-vision people with data visualization. Using a single natural-language prompt, AI will generate multimodal data explanations, including coordinated visual plots, tactile shapes for refreshable Braille displays, plain-language summaries, auditory sonification revealing patterns by sound, and interactive chat. The work will build on Seo's Multimodal Access and Interactive Data Representation (MAIDR) framework. During his CAS semester, Seo plans to connect AI agents to MAIDR through a Model Context Protocol (MCP).
"MCP functions like a plug-and-play interface that lets AI 'use the right tools' without the user writing code," Seo explained. "It makes the MAIDR system easy to use (plain language in, accessible outputs out)."
Seo is an RStudio double-certified data science instructor and accessibility expert who is certified by the International Association of Accessibility Professionals. He directs the (x)Ability Design Lab, which aims to advance inclusive (use)ability (UX) and (learn)ability (LX) to create inclusive (access)ability designed by, with, and for people with varying degrees of (dis)Abilities. Seo earned his PhD from the Learning, Design, and Technology Program at Pennsylvania State University.