Helena Ilic

Year in School
Freshman

Major
Computer Science

Research Interests

Research Mentor
Professor Karrie Karahalios

Research/Engagement Experience
This past summer, I conducted research with College of DuPage IT Professor Robert Plank on the utilization of virtual and augmented reality systems for various interactive instructional technologies. Prior to that, I participated in a machine learning summer program in which I developed a facial recognition artificial intelligence software and garnered a passion for AI systems. In high school, I participated in mentorship as a part of Empower Club, a computer science club empowering girls' participation in computer science by mentoring them in a 9-week programming fundamentals course, as well as taking part in creating and mentoring 41 new elementary school robotics teams as a lead on FIRST Robotics Competition Team #3061.

Interests
Robotics, Human-computer interaction, Big Data and Machine learning for personalization

Project Title
TBD

How did I get interested in Computer Science?
My spark for computer science ignited in 3rd grade, when I created an interactive birthday card for my friend using Scratch, a block-based programming language. After experiencing her glee, I became fascinated in positively impacting others through my computing creations.

What social interests matter to me?
Technological Ethics (privacy, facial recognition), STEM Accessibility, and Sustainability

What is my most impactful college experience?
My most impactful college experience so far has been being able to reconnect with so many familiar faces I met at the Women in CS Admitted Day I attended in spring of 2023. After initially only catching glimpses of these people, being able to forge friendships with the same like-minded people on campus was motivating and excited me for the next 4 years!

These are a few of my favorite things!
My cat, boxing, and visiting coffee shops

Research Description
Prior work has discovered that search engines have algorithmic bias, assuming that everyone searches the same thing. But what if people are encountering bias because the search terms they use are biasing search results? The research I am undertaking under the mentorship of Prof. Karrie Karahalios in the Social Spaces lab aims to quantify the extent to which the self-inflicted difference in search queries will bias results using a sample representative of the US population. My research involves developing a literature review on the topic and going through the whole data analyzation process on the pre-existing survey result data, including but not limited to: cleaning, qualitative manual grouping methods, quantitative statistical methods, and parsing the resulting search HTML files. I hope to conclude the project by developing a research paper to add to the conversation on search bias as a whole.

Biography
My name is Helena Ilic, and I am a freshman studying Computer Science at UIUC originally from Naperville, IL. In addition to CS STARS, I am a part of Women in Computer Science and SWE, and hope to join either the rock climbing or astronomy club! Something that attracted me to computer science was the field's vast diversity and potential for positive impact. I am excited to explore the intersection between computer science and robotics, human-computer interaction, and machine learning in my research. I hope to become a computer scientist specializing in machine learning, systems, and big data in the future in order to improve society and people's lives.