Leana Shin, senior in LAS, was recognized as the global winner in the law category at the 2025 Global Undergraduate Awards for her senior thesis, titled “Justice by Proxy: When AI becomes the voice of the silent in asylum adjudication.” Shin’s work examines the potential for artificial intelligence to aid asylum seekers and legal research.
A judging team of 500 academics reviewed over 2,400 submissions across 348 universities in 99 countries. Judges selected winners for 25 categories, which included a range of study areas. In November, Shin attended the 16th Annual GUA Global Summit in Dublin, Ireland, where the program recognized winners in person.
Former Irish government minister Simon Coveney presented the awards at the Global Gala Dinner and awards ceremony. Coveney presented Shin with the Thomas Clarkson Medal, named in honor of the English slave abolitionist. According to the GUA website, the award serves “to highlight the potential of well-crafted research and its power to change the world.”
The idea for Shin’s thesis, she said, was inspired by a documentary shown in professor in LAS Cara Wong’s PS 494: Junior Honors Seminar titled “Well-Founded Fear.” The documentary shows the asylum process of the federal U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, an agency predating the Department of Homeland Security.
“That documentary made me first realize how uncertain and overwhelming that process can be for the asylum seekers,” Shin said in an interview with The Daily Illini.
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After this, Shin said she began brainstorming solutions to problems with asylum services that utilized technology.
Shin is currently minoring in informatics, noting that she was always interested in bridging her passion for asylum adjudication and information sciences.
Shin completed her thesis in the spring through the political science honors program and submitted her work to the GUA in June. A few months later, Shin got an email and phone call from the program, a moment she described as surreal.
“I really couldn’t have achieved this without the opportunities provided by the department,” Shin wrote in a social media post. “I truly appreciate the department’s continued support and guidance throughout my — and all other PS students’ — research journey. Thank you very much again.”
In her thesis, Shin wrote that AI could help expand access to asylum protections, adding that this is only possible if the technology has the proper ethical safeguards. While Shin’s current outlook on AI is hopeful, she explained her perception of AI used to be much more critical.
“As I studied more about technology and AI … I learned that it’s like a double edged sword — there’s a good side and a bad side, and I think my thesis also addresses the point that AI might have helped these asylum seekers, but (it) still may not be accurate and may not be accessible to all,” Shin said.
Accessibility, Shin noted, is the main issue regarding AI’s use in the asylum process; however, she pointed out other areas for improvement. AI models’ tendency to “hallucinate,” or create misleading or false information and present it as fact, is another issue she hopes to see resolved in the future.
“The machine learning model that I built in this thesis was based on real asylum cases,” Shin said. “AI can create some fake narratives in the legal documents of the asylum seekers, and that might cause another problem.”
Shin said that while there is more work to do, she said the award represents more than the technical side of her work.
“I think (the award) not only recognizes my research itself, but I think it recognizes my … love to take initiative and be really proactive with all the opportunities that I can seek out,” Shin said. “I really want to encourage all other students as well to be proactive, take initiative. Because we’re still undergraduate students. We can do that. We can do all of the things, try all of the things.”
