About Me

I'm Jerry Chen, a robotics engineer studying Electrical & Computer Engineering and Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University. I work at the intersection of autonomy, sensing, and control—building systems that span hardware, firmware, and software. I like challenges where reliability matters, where a robot has to work not just in simulation but under dust, noise, imperfect sensors, and real-world chaos.

Most of my projects involve getting physical systems to behave with intention: torque-controlled robotic hands, Jetson-based perception stacks, BLDC motor controllers, and operator-centered interfaces for the CMU Lunabotics rover. I enjoy the moment a system stops being "a collection of parts" and starts acting like one coherent machine.

Outside engineering, I'm drawn to things with rhythm and craft. I've played table tennis since I was a kid; it taught me resilience and how to improve one point at a time. Tennis keeps me balanced. I cook a lot—steak, risotto, Taiwanese comfort food—and I love exploring coffee shops, airports, and cities with a camera. I'm slowly building a jazz-focused vinyl collection and occasionally disappear into creative coding and generative art. I'm always learning: better ROS2 architectures, cleaner motor-control loops, more thoughtful UI patterns, and how to design systems that are not just functional but dependable. After CMU, I want to keep working on robots and machines that operate in the real world—whether that's field robotics, aerospace, autonomy, or something I'll end up building myself. I like making things that move, respond, and feel intentional. And I like problems that feel slightly out of reach.