Professor Jingrui He is among the five professors at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who have been named 2026 University Scholars in recognition of their achievements in teaching, scholarship, and service.
The program honors faculty excellence and provides $15,000 to each scholar for three years to enhance their academic careers. That money may be used for travel, equipment, research assistants, books or other purposes.
“The University Scholars program recognizes faculty whose work exemplifies the very best of the University of Illinois System,” said Nicholas Jones, the executive vice president and vice president for academic affairs for the University of Illinois System. “Through their groundbreaking research, innovative teaching and service to their disciplines and communities, these scholars advance knowledge, enrich the student experience and help address society’s most pressing challenges.”
He’s research centers on the designing, building and testing of automated and semi-automated methods to explore, understand, characterize and predict real-world data by means of traditional and modern AI such as agentic systems. She then seeks to embed those methods within applicable industries — sustainability and agriculture, healthcare, national security and finance — to foster positive societal impact. Her research record has made her a routine recipient of recognition, including the 2016 National Science Foundation CAREER Award, the 2025 Amazon Research Award, a three-time recipient of the IBM Faculty Award, multiple best/distinguished paper awards and recently an induction to Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Honor Society.
She also has served as a leader and mentor to students since joining the university in 2019, serving as a program committee co-chair for leading conferences, such as ACM SIGKDD, IEEE BigData and PAKDD; ranking as an excellent teacher — as determined by her students — and developing the next generation of information professionals as the director of the master of science in information management program.