25 Under 25 Honoree Alwin John

Alwin John arrived at Stevens from halfway around the world, carrying with her a belief that technology and community are most powerful when they work together. As an international student pursuing her Master of Science in information systems, she has wasted no time putting that belief into practice.

During her very first semester, John took on a role as Graduate Assistant in Classroom Management in the Office of the Provost, helping coordinate academic operations and supporting faculty. She’s volunteered her expertise to Innovation Expo and the Synthetic Narratives AI/XR + Future of Storytelling Conference. Having firsthand experience of adjusting to life in a new country, serving as Treasurer of the Stevens Christian Club is deeply personal to John. She has worked diligently to ensure the club remains a place where students feel genuinely connected, gathering every Friday to share meals, play games and find community far from home.

Her academic and professional work sits at the intersection of artificial intelligence and real-world impact. As a Strategic Planning AI Intern at the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development, she developed a locally hosted large language model pipeline that standardized information across more than 100 internal documents and contributed to the city's ethical AI implementation guidelines. Earlier in her career, she co-authored a published research paper on plant leaf disease detection using YOLOv7 and GPT-3 integration, building the dataset entirely from scratch to address a gap in available research.

John also represented Stevens in the fifth Annual Global Scaling Challenge, where her team won the Americas Regional competition and advanced to the global finals. She was further honored as the Graduate Student Winner of the 2025 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Oratorical Contest at Stevens, a recognition that speaks as much to her character as to her intellect.