Bio

Henrik I Christensen is the KUKA Chair of Robotics and a professor in the School of Interactive Computing in the College of Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He also serves as the executive director of the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines. Christensen was initially trained in Mechanical Engineering and worked subsequently with MAN/BW Diesel. He earned a master’s and doctorate in electrical engineering from Aalborg University. Since graduating, Christensen has participated in a large number of international research projects across four continents. He has held positions at Aalborg University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Royal Institute of Technology before joining Georgia Tech. Christensen does research on robotics with a particular emphasis on a systems perspective to the problem. Solutions must have a strong theoretical basis, a corresponding well-defined implementation and it must be evaluated in realistic settings. There is a strong emphasis on “real systems for real applications!” The research has involved collaborations with ABB, Electrolux, Daimler-Chrysler, KUKA, iRobot, Apple, Partek Forest, Volvo, SAIC, Boeing, General Motors, PSA Peugeot, BMW, Yujin, and more. Christensen has published more than 300 contributions across robotics, vision and artificial intelligence. Christensen served as the Founding Chairman of European Robotics Research Network (1999-2006) and as the research coordinator for ECVision (2000-2004). He has lead and participated in a large number of European Union projects such as VAP, CoSy, CogVis, SMART, CAMERA, EcVision, EURON, Cogniron, and Neurobotics. He served as the principal investigator for the Computing Community Consortium initiative on U.S. Robotics. He is a principal investigator on ARL MAST CTA, the Robotics-Vo and n number of projects with industry. He was awarded the Joseph Engelberger Award 2011 and also named a Boeing Supplier of the Year 2011. He is a fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He was awarded an honorary doctorate in engineering from Aalborg University 2014. Christensen has served/serves on the editorial board for many of the most prestigious journals in the field including the International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR), Autonomous Robots, Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS), IEEE Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (PAMI), and Image & Vision Computing. In addition, he serves on the editorial board of the Springer STAR Series and the MIT Series on Intelligent Robotics and Autonomous Agents. He is the co-editor-in-chief of Trends and Foundations in Robotics.