People > Profile
Ryan Shi, PhD
- Assistant Professor of Computer Science
- Secondary Faculty, Department of Biomedical Informatics
Department of Computer Science (primary); Department of Biomedical Informatics (secondary)
Biography
Dr. Ryan Shi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Pittsburgh. He works with public-sector organizations to address societal challenges in food security, healthcare, and poverty alleviation through AI. Several of his systems have been deployed by these organizations worldwide. His honors include a 2026 Amazon Research Award, Google Academic Research Awards in 2024 and 2025, the 2024 Allen Newell Award for Research Excellence, and a 2022 Siebel Scholar Award. He was named to the 2025 AAAI New Faculty Highlights and the 2022 Rising Stars lists in Data Science and ML/AI. He holds a Ph.D. in Societal Computing from Carnegie Mellon University, advised by Fei Fang, and a B.A. in Mathematics and Computer Science from Swarthmore College. Prior to his faculty appointment, he consulted for DataKind and interned at Microsoft and Facebook.
Research Interests
Dr. Shi’s research develops reinforcement learning, bandit, and large language model methods for social-impact applications, with an emphasis on end-to-end deployment alongside nonprofit and NGO partners. His group builds systems for volunteer and user engagement in food-rescue and food-security operations, personalized engagement for smallholder farmers, and media monitoring for environmental conservation. A parallel line of work examines multilingual and multi-script performance gaps in large language models deployed on real-world healthcare and social platforms.
Specialties
- Artificial Intelligence for Social Good
- Reinforcement Learning and Multi-Armed Bandits
- Large Language Models
- Applied Machine Learning for Humanitarian and Nonprofit Impact
- Multi-Agent Systems
Websites & Links
Education & Training
- B.A., Mathematics and Computer Science (Honors, 4.00 GPA)Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA2014–2018
- Visiting Student, EECSMassachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA2016–2017
- Ph.D., Societal ComputingCarnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA2018–2023
Awards & Distinctions
- Newell Award for Research ExcellenceCarnegie Mellon University2024
- AAAI IAAI Deployed Application Award (NewsPanda)AAAI2023
Research Grants
| Grant / Funding Agency | Role | Grant Number | Years |
|---|---|---|---|
| Societal-centered AI Cohort — Google Academic Research Award | PI | 2025 | |
| Empowering Smallholder Farmers — Google Academic Research Award | PI | 2024 | |
| Multilingual LLMs on Real Indic Language Healthcare Dialogues Amazon | PI | 2026 | |
| Digital Twin for Perioperative Care Laude Institute | PI | 2026 |