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 Institute for Contextual Robotics. Prior to UC San Diego he was the founding director of Institute for Robotics and Intelligent machines (IRIM) at Georgia Institute of Technology (2006-2016). Dr. Christensen does research on autonomy, human-robot interaction, and robot perception.  He has published more than 400 contributions across AI, robotics and vision. His research has a strong emphasis on “real problems with real solutions”. He is actively engaged in the setup and coordination of robotics research in the US (and worldwide). Dr. Christensen received the Engelberger Award in 2011, the highest honor in the robotics industry. He was also named the “Boeing Supplier of the Year 2011”, while at Georgia Tech. Dr. Christensen is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). He received an honorary doctorate in engineering from Aalborg University 2014. Henrik was named a Temasek Fellow (2025).