H. Chad Lane

I am a Professor of Educational Psychology and Computer Science at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, with appointments in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction and Illinois Informatics Institute. I am also the Associate Chair of the Department of Educational Psychology and Director of the NSF-IES INVITE AI Institute. Prior to joining Illinois in 2015, I was a Research Scientist and Director of Learning Sciences Research at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies.

My work blends creative approaches from the entertainment industry (to foster engagement) with advanced AI techniques (to promote learning) to address emerging problems in education. I strive to create AI-powered educational tools that not only improve cognitive outcomes, but also support learners to develop problem solving and self-regulatory skills. My current work emphasizes how large language models (LLMs) and generative AI tools can be combined with “classic” techniques (e.g., symbolic AI) to pursue deeper levels of engagement, interactivity, and nuance in how intelligent learning technologies can support learners. Throughout my career I have sought to work on radically interdisciplinary teams not only across disciplines (psychology, anthropology, linguistics, plant biology), but also with a wide range of practitioners (teachers, script writers, medical doctors, master gardeners). I find that interdisciplinary science not only (ultimately) produces better solutions to challenging problems, but that it is also far more rewarding to work on teams of people with vastly different backgrounds.

I received my PhD in Computer Science in 2004 from the University of Pittsburgh where I built a dialogue-based tutoring system for novice programmers. My advisor was Prof. Kurt VanLehn.

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