• Max Chen
  • Known Alias: Jingru Chen
  • she/her
  • mjchen (at) wpi (dot) edu
  • Fuller Lab B16
  • Worcester Polytechnic Institute
  • 100 Institute Rd
  • Worcester, MA, 01609

Hello!

I am a PhD student at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and a proud member of Crafting Computational Crafting (CCC) Lab, Intentional Design Studio and HCI Lab. I am interested in exploring design strategies, particularly in Procedural Content Generation, that leverage biological and neurological sensing to enhance user experiences in immersive environments such as video games, virtual reality, and augmented reality. As a research assistant at WPI Academic & Research Computing, I design, develop, and evaluate digital media products that support and promote faculty research, teaching, scholarship, and external partnerships.

Prior my life as a developer and HCI researcher, I majored in Pharmaceutical Engineering and obtained a Bachelor’s degree from Wuhan University of Technology (WHUT), Wuhan, China in 2020. I worked with Prof. Yihua Yin in particle drug delivery system, and interned as clinical research associate at Novartis. Through these experiences, I discovered the potential benefits of informative systems and immersive technologies in the medical industry, particularly in the areas of rehabilitation training and education. The COVID-19 pandemic led me to consider the potential and challenges of remote learning in immersive environments, which ultimately inspired me to transition into a developer and HCI researcher.

If you are interested in my work or simply want to chat about biofeedback and neurofeedback games, I would love to hear from you! Please feel free to send me an email and that's how epic begins.

News

5/29/2024

This summer, I will be working with Monty Sharma and helping to faciliate Massdigi Summer Innovation Program.

5/21/2024

Foundations of Digital Games 2024 (FDG '24) is held at WPI from May 21-24! I'm thrilled to be involved in local arrangements, volunteering, and running FDG TV. As part of FDG TV, we will be producing attendee interviews to be featured on the FDG YouTube channel.

I am also presenting three works: Exploring the Complexity of Jubensha, Designing Interactive Virtual Tours for Education, and Game Development as Project-Based Learning: Synthesizing Postmortems of Student-Created Mobile Games.

5/14/2024

"FlowAR" is featured on the May issue's front cover in the Journal of Chemical Education. FlowAR is a mixed-reality program to introduce flow chemistry tools to undergraduate students. Read More....

3/27/2024

Our project "WheelUp!" is featured by WPI News. WheelUp is a virtual reality-based simulator that provides effective training in safe settings.

8/29/2023

IEEE Conference on Games (CoG) took place at Northeastern, Boston last week. I presented our work Wheelup in the Serious Game Track. It was a great pleasure to meet everyone who is also enthusiastic about game-related research.

Our work "Stackable Music" is accepted by CHI Play work-in-progress track. I am getting very excited about the travel to Stratford, Canada this October!

6/4/2023

This summer, I am going to work with Prof. Cliff Forlines on the research project named "Wearable devices for cognitive and emotional monitoring" as a part of the summer research program at The Roux Institute, Northeastern University. Looking forward to meeting the cohort tomorrow!

4/8/2023

I am excited to attend the upcoming FDG in Lisbon! A big thanks to 2023 Travel Assistance Program (TAP) and WPI Graduate Studies Graduate Student Travel Award for supporting my travel expenses. Looking forward to connecting with fellow researchers and exploring the latest developments in the field.

3/7/2023

Our project Supporting WPI Women in STEM Education Research for funding at $11,478 by WIN (Women’s Impact Network) Impact Grant!

1/13/2023

Our paper Impact of BCI-Informed Visual Effect Adaptation in a Walking Simulator is accepted for inclusion to the 2023 Foundations of Digital Games (FDG) as a full paper!

1/2023

I am elected as the guratuate student representative for the IMGD Steering Committee and Senator for the Graduate Student Government.

12/2022

I submitted my master thesis and fulfilled all the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Interactive Media and Game Development.

11/1/2022

It was a great pleasure to mmet with girls at Latino Education Institute @ Wocester State University. Girls designed and fabriacted lighted-up bracelets. Special thanks to Kathleen Orengo, Ceren Yılmaz Akkaya, Erika Collin-Ulloa, Nellie Rushton and Noemi Robertson for organizing the event, and Central MA STEM Network (CMSN) Ecosystem for funding our event.

9/6/2022

I am selected to be a graduate mentor in WPI's Women's Research and Mentorship Program (Grant-funded, $1500). Special thanks to Katherine Chen and Nicole Anterni for organizing WRAMP, and WPI Women's Impact Network, Intel, Sampe Foundation and Teradyne for supporting WRAMP.

8/15/2022

I am thrilled to announce that I will continue my Ph.D study in Computational Media with Prof. Gillian Smith and Prof. Erin Solovey.

2/17/2022

Our team has won the 3rd prize in WPI's 14th Annual Sustainability Project Competition! (Award $500, team members are Varun Bhat, Shano Liang, Mikel Matticoli)