Abdussalam Alawini

Abdussalam  Alawini
Abdussalam Alawini
Teaching Associate Professor
(217) 300-8116
2237 Siebel Center for Comp Sci

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Education

  • Ph.D. Computer Science, 2016, Portland State University
  • MSc. Engineering and Technology Management, 2011, Portland State University
  • MSc. Computer Science, 2011, Portland State University

Biography

Abdussalam Alawini is a Teaching Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His educational journey started with a bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the University of Tripoli in 2002. He then worked in the industry for over six years as a database administrator, lead software developer, and IT Manager. In 2011, he returned to academia and received a master's in Computer Science and another master's degree in Engineering and Technology Management from Portland State University. He then received a doctoral degree in Computer Science from Portland State in 2016. In his Ph.D., he built systems to help scientists manage their file-based datasets by predicting relationships among spreadsheet documents. Passionate about a career in academia, Dr. Alawini joined the University of Pennsylvania in 2016 as a postdoctoral researcher. As a postdoc, he developed data citation and data provenance systems for scientists. Dr. Alawini's research interests are broadly in databases, applied machine learning, and education. He is particularly interested in applying machine learning methods to improve classroom experience and education in general. He is also interested in building next-generation data management systems, including data provenance, citation, and scientific management systems.

Academic Positions

  • Teaching Associate Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Department of Computer Science, 8/2023-present
  • Teaching Assistant Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Department of Computer Science, 8/2018-7/2023
  • Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Pennsylvania, Computer and Information Science, 07/2016-07/2018
  • Adjunct Faculty, Portland State University, Computer Science Department, 01/2016-06/2016

Resident Instruction

  • CS411 Database Systems

Course Development

  • Data Management in the Cloud (CS 498)

Research Interests

  • Scientific Data Management
  • Data Provenance
  • Database Systems
  • Computer Science Education

Chapters in Books

Articles in Conference Proceedings

Journal Editorships

  • The Journal of Information Systems (2016)

Conferences Organized or Chaired

  • Chair of the 2022 Illinois Computer Science Teaching Workshop
  • Proceedings Co-Chair, SIGMOD 2020

Service on Department Committees

  • Member of the Instructional Developers Allocation Committee, 2022-2023
  • Co-Chair of the Instructional Faculty Recruiting Committee, 2022-2023
  • Member of the Broadening Participation in Computing Committee, 2021-2022
  • Academic Appeals Committee, 2019-2020
  • Member of the Online Education Committee, 2019-2020 and 2020-2021
  • Member of the Instructional Faculty Recruiting Committee, 2018-2019,2019-2020 and 2021-2022

Service on College Committees

  • A3E Education Innovation Fellow

Other Outside Service

  • PC Member: DataEd 2022 - International workshop on data systems education: bridging education practice with education research
  • PC Members: SIGCSE TS 2021 - 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education
  • PC Member: ITiCSE 2021 - Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education
  • Academic Programs External Review Committee, SUNY Morrisville, 2020
  • PC Member: SIGCSE 2020 - 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education
  • PC Member: ITiCSE 2020 - 25th Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education

Honors

  • A3E Education Innovation Fellow (2022)

Teaching Honors

  • Campus Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching (4/2024)
  • COVID-19 WALL OF RECOGNITION IN ENGINEERING (04/2021)
  • TEACHERS RANKED AS EXCELLENT(Ranked outstanding in CS 411: Database Systems AND in CS 498: Data Management in the Cloud) (Spring 2021 )
  • TEACHERS RANKED AS EXCELLENT  (Summer 2021 )
  • TEACHERS RANKED AS EXCELLENT (Spring 2020 )
  • TEACHERS RANKED AS EXCELLENT (Fall 2019 )
  • TEACHERS RANKED AS EXCELLENT (Summer 2019 )
  • TEACHERS RANKED AS EXCELLENT (Spring 2019 )

Research Honors

  • 2nd Place in the 2021 ACM SIGCSE Undergraduate Student Research Competition (Awarded to my student Mei Chen) (2021)

Public Service Honors

  • Portland State President’s Award for University Service. (2015)

Recent Courses Taught

  • CS 411 - Database Systems
  • CS 498 AB3 (CS 498 AB4, CS 498 ABU) - Data Management in the Cloud