Henrik I. Christensen, Ph.D.

Researcher, Educator, Entrepreneur, and Investor

Dr. Henrik I. Christensen is the Qualcomm Chancellor's Chair of Robot Systems and a Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering, UC San Diego. He is also the director of the Contextual Robotics Institute.

He is an academic doing research on robotics and artificial intelligence, the main editor of the US National Robotics Roadmap, and an entrepreneur.

Dr. Christensen does research on robotics and AI, with an emphasis on a systems view to problems. The research has been published in 400+ contributions across AI, Computer Vision, and Robotics. The research has been adopted by companies such as Electrolux, ABB, KUKA, Weda, BMW, Boeing, iRobot, PerMobil, General Motors, etc.

Henrik has been active in community organization such as the European Robotics Network and later as the main organizer of the US Robotics Roadmaps (2009, 2013, 2016, and 2020), which formed the basis for the National Robotics Initiative (NSF, NIST, USDA, NIH,...).

Dr. Christensen has co-founded several companies, including Robust.AI. He serves as an advisor to companies and agencies across four continents.

Dr. Christensen is a fellow of IEEE and AAAS. He was awarded the "Joseph Engelberger Award" 2011, the highest honor awarded by the industry, and named "Boeing Supplier of the Year" 2011. He was awarded an honorary doctorate (Dr. Techn. h.c.) in engineering from Aalborg University 2014. His work has been featured in major media such as CNN, BBC, NY Times, Financial Times, Bloomberg, ...