Yixin Chen, a professor of computer science and engineering in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, has been elected a fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI).
Fellows have made significant, sustained contributions over at least a 10-year period to the field of artificial intelligence. Chen is the first person from WashU to be elected as an AAAI fellow, one of the highest honors in the AI community.
Chen, who is also director of the Collaborative Human-AI Learning and Operation (HALO) Center, was elected for his significant contributions to machine learning, pioneering widely used architectures and algorithms for graph neural networks and lightweight deep neural networks. He is among 16 fellows elected in 2025.
Separately, Chen also received the St. Louis Innovator Award from the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis at its inaugural Spirit of Innovation Awards Jan. 23.
Chen was selected for his contributions and dedication to fostering innovation and entrepreneurship in the region, specifically, in artificial intelligence and large-language models and their applications in health care and legal practices.
