Karen Chen
Associate Professor
- Phone: 919.515.6403
- Email: kbchen2@ncsu.edu
- Office: 4349 Fitts-Woolard Hall
Karen Chen joined NC State’s Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering as a faculty member in August 2016. Prior to joining ISE, she was a postdoctoral research associate at the Healthcare Systems Engineering Institute at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts.
Chen’s research in human-technology interactions focuses on studying human performances and behaviors (in terms of limits and capacity), with applications in training, learning, and healthcare. She offers courses in Human Factors in Systems Design, Systems Safety Engineering, and Virtual Reality and Human Factors.
Chen is funded by National Science Foundation (NSF) and by National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). She is a faculty member of the occupational safety and ergonomics (OSE) program of the NC Occupational Safety and Health Education and Research Center (ERC). She also collaborates with The Ergonomics Center of North Carolina for industry projects. Her work on virtual and mixed reality technologies is also disseminated via local media (WRAL5, CW22, PBC NC), outreach for K-12 students underrepresented in STEM, and panels at North Carolina Comicon.
Visit Chen’s Virtual and Augmented Reality Lab.
Research Interests
Chen’s primary research interest is to advance the understanding of human performance and behavior, and thereby design systems to match human capabilities and employ VR and mixed reality (MR) technologies (i.e., human factors of technologies) to support health, safety, work, learning, and many other fields. Her current research focuses on examining and characterizing human movements and behaviors in immersive virtual environments for training and learning. Her previous work focused on rehabilitative movements and therapeutic exercises in virtual reality for patients with chronic pain.
Education
| Degree | Program | School | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ph.D. | Biomedical Engineering | University of Wisconsin-Madison | 2015 |
| MS | Biomedical Engineering | University of Wisconsin-Madison | 2010 |
| BS | Biomedical Engineering | University of Wisconsin-Madison | 2009 |
Honors and Awards
- Goodnight Early Career Innovators Award, NC State’s Provost’s Office
- 2021 | AEC Young Investigator Award
- 2014 | IEEE VR Best Poster Award
- 2014 | HFES Student Honors Award
Discover more about Karen Chen
- Like Safety, Success Doesn’t Happen by Accident
- A Seeker of Science
- Which Came First: The Superhero or the Science?
- Creator of Worlds
- Watch Virtual Reality Team on the CW22
- ISE Goes to Comicon
- Watch Dr. Chen talk with WRAL News about her virtual reality research
- ISE Welcomes New Faculty
Publications
- Sense of Presence and the Illusion of Self-scaling in Virtual Learning Environments
- Wu, L., Chen, K. B., Peterson, M., & Delgado, C. (2025). , . https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-76815-6_14
- Embodiment of Virtual Body and Extremities With Movement Control in Reaching Tasks Using Virtual Reality
- Wu, L., & Chen, K. B. (2024), Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting. https://doi.org/10.1177/10711813241273495
- Examining the Effects of Embodiment on Working Memory Performance in VR
- Wu, L., & Chen, K. B. (2024), Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting. https://doi.org/10.1177/10711813241273515
- Gender Swap in Virtual Reality for Supporting Inclusion and Implications in the Workplace
- Wu, L., & Chen, K. B. (2024, October 23), IISE TRANSACTIONS ON OCCUPATIONAL ERGONOMICS & HUMAN FACTORS, Vol. 10. https://doi.org/10.1080/24725838.2024.2419130
- Learning Scale in Virtual Reality: Experiences and Perception of Immersive Technology at a Public Middle School
- Chen, K. B., Harper-Gampp, T., Wu, L., Delgado, C., & Peterson, M. (2024), Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 9. https://doi.org/10.1177/10711813241265650
- Negative Emotions From Virtual Reality Usage: A Preliminary Exploratory Study Using Online Forums
- Fang, E., Sivaramakrishnan, A., & Chen, K. B. (2024), Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting. https://doi.org/10.1177/10711813241275079
- Robot-related injuries in the workplace: An analysis of OSHA Severe Injury Reports
- Sanders, N. E., Sener, E., & Chen, K. B. (2024), APPLIED ERGONOMICS, 121. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apergo.2024.104324
- Study of Graphic Armatures, Multimodal Cues, and Numeric Measures in Virtual Reality on Learners’ Performance and Workload
- Cheng, F., Harper-Gampp, T., Planchart, R., Dunning, M., Peterson, M., Delgado, C., & Chen, K. B. (2024), Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting. https://doi.org/10.1177/10711813241269236
- A comparison of the psychological effects of robot motion in physical and virtual environments
- Sanders, N. E., Xie, Z., & Chen, K. B. (2023), APPLIED ERGONOMICS, 112. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apergo.2023.104039
- Eliciting Ergonomic User-Defined Gestures for Virtual Reality: A Pilot Study
- Sanders, N., Sener, E., & Chen, K. B. (2023), Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting. https://doi.org/10.1177/21695067231192530
