UChicago Data Science Institute Welcomes Four New Faculty for 2026-27

Two assistant professors in statistics, optimization and AI

Mateo Diaz joins as the inaugural Faraco Family Assistant Professor of Statistics and Data Science. According to the institute, his research lies at the intersection of continuous optimization, geometry, and statistics. He develops mathematical foundations and scalable algorithms for problems arising in data science, machine learning, and signal processing.

Diaz was previously an assistant professor of applied mathematics and statistics at Johns Hopkins University, and spent two years as a postdoctoral scholar at Caltech. He received his PhD in applied mathematics from Cornell University in 2021, and holds bachelor's degrees in mathematics and in systems and computing engineering, plus a master's degree in mathematics, from Universidad de los Andes in Colombia. His work has been recognized with the Beale-Orchard-Hays Prize, an NSF CAREER Award, and a Sloan Research Fellowship in Mathematics.

Belinda Li joins as Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Data Science. Her research focuses on building AI systems that have coherent and interpretable models of the world, the user, and themselves. She has developed methods for understanding modern language models' implicit world models, eliciting user models through proactive question-asking, and training language models to faithfully explain their internal computations. The institute says her work aims to make AI systems more transparent, reliable, and amenable to human collaboration.

Li earned her PhD at MIT EECS and has received a Rising Stars in EECS Award, a Clare Boothe Luce Fellowship, and an NDSEG Fellowship. She is currently at Anthropic for the next year and will be on campus for the 2027-28 academic year.

Two instructional professors focused on teaching

Naina Balepur joins as Instructional Professor in Data Science. She holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where her research lay at the intersection of social network analysis and game theory, with a focus on understanding human decision-making through modeling and simulation. Most recently, she studied institutional trust through local interviews, and she plans to continue community-engaged work through outreach and teaching.

As a graduate instructor, Balepur became interested in more transparent and inclusive teaching practices. She hopes to develop those as she teaches introductory and upper-level elective courses in Data Science.

Aidan San also joins as Instructional Professor in Data Science. He teaches introductory courses and AI courses for undergraduate students at the Data Science Institute. San received his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Virginia and his bachelor's from the University of Illinois, studying CS + Linguistics. During his PhD, he researched language model evaluation, while teaching introductory Computer Science and Discrete Mathematics. He also serves as a mentor and judge for hackathons.

What the appointments mean for students and the institute

The group covers both research and teaching roles. The assistant professors bring work on optimization and statistical foundations, and on making AI systems more interpretable and transparent. The instructional professors will teach at the undergraduate level, with Balepur covering introductory and upper-level elective courses and San teaching introductory and AI courses.

For students, the source points to a mix of foundational courses and AI-focused instruction, along with outreach and mentoring activities such as hackathons. Li's arrangement means her on-campus presence begins in the 2027-28 academic year, after her current year at Anthropic.