Karen Chen

Karen Chen is an Associate Professor in the Edward P. Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at North Carolina State University, part of the College of Engineering. She holds affiliations with the NC Occupational Safety and Health Education and Research Center (ERC) and collaborates with The Ergonomics Center of North Carolina. Her lab focuses on Virtual and Augmented Reality applications for training, healthcare, and occupational safety.

Education: Ph.D., MS, and BS in Biomedical Engineering from University of Wisconsin-Madison (2009-2015). Postdoctoral research at Northeastern University's Healthcare Systems Engineering Institute. Key awards include the Goodnight Early Career Innovators Award and NSF/NIOSH funding.

Research interests center on human-technology interactions in VR/MR environments, particularly for training, healthcare, and workplace safety. Recent work explores scale cognition in educational VR, embodiment effects on cognitive performance, and robot-related workplace injuries. Her lab engages in K-12 STEM outreach via media and public events like North Carolina Comicon.

Publications emphasize VR's psychological impacts, ergonomic interface design, and workplace safety innovations. Collaborations span academia and industry, with media features on WRAL5 and CW22 highlighting her work's societal impact.