Skip to main content

NCSA, Illinois Technology Services, and College of Media come together to imagine the future of adve


From working on building the Social Media Macroscope, to leading the Social Research and Technology Innovation Lab (SRTI) at the University of Illinois, and venturing out into launching a futuristic prototype of computational advertising, Dr. Joseph T. Yun, Leader of Research and Innovation at Technology Services, Research Assistant Professor at the College of Media and NCSA center affiliate, has big ideas for changing the way we understand advertising, research, and consumer behavior in the era of Big Data and social media.

In a new collaboration with NCSA’s Industry program, Dr. Yun will be working to develop a new face of advertising using Big Data and Deep Learning to better predict and understand the impact of marketing and consumer behavior. This new technology will be offered as a potential service for NCSA Industry partners who are interested in leveraging supercomputing applications to get a behind the scenes look at consumer behavior trends in their sector.

“The work of Dr. Yun and his lab is quite unique in an industrial setting,” said NCSA Industry Director, Brendan McGinty, “Traditionally, companies utilize third-party or internal marketing and advertising talent and, while data is increasingly important and leveraged, great depth isn’t realized. Joe’s research and development of products like the Social Media Macroscope allow for massive data to be analyzed and visualized in new and innovative ways. Any company, particularly large companies with outreach to consumers, can benefit from the research and tools available from the work of Dr. Yun and his lab.”

Dr. Yun’s background in computational science and real-world advertising brings these two worlds together. “My research asks ‘What is the real world impact of social media impacting or influencing everyday life, specifically marketing and advertising?’” Dr. Yun said, “and as any classic computer scientist would do, I built a tool for it.“

While Yun’s analyses can be very computationally heavy, companies that want to take a deeper look into their own or marketing data can partner with NCSA’s Industry program to access high-performance computing resources and technical experts.

Disclaimer: Due to changes in website systems, we've adjusted archived content to fit the present-day site and the articles will not appear in their original published format. Formatting, header information, photographs and other illustrations are not available in archived articles.

Back to top