Dr. Ian Chen

Ian Chen is a Software Engineering Supervisor at Open Robotics where he works on commercial, and government funded robotics simulation projects. He is the team lead for the development of the MBZIRC Maritime Grand Challenge simulator. Ian has been involved in creating simulation platforms for various virtual robotics challenges including the DARPA Robotics Challenge, the DARPA Subterranean Challenge, and the NASA Space Robotics Challenge.

Prior to joining Open Robotics, Ian was a software engineer at Nokia where he contributed to the open-source Qt framework. Prior to Nokia, Ian was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Auckland during which he worked on visualization, 3D perception, and human-robot interaction projects.

Ian received his PhD from the University of Auckland. His PhD research focused on applying mixed reality techniques to enhance robot simulations, creating a world where real robots are capable of sensing and physically interacting with virtual objects.