Prof. dr. ing. Jelle Saldien
Professor at the research group of Product Development, Faculty of Design Sciences, University of Antwerp and at the research group for Media, Innovation and Contemporary Technologies, Department of Industrial Systems Engineering and Product Design, Ghent University.
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Interaction Design
Design of Smart Products
Human Computer Interaction
Human Robot Interaction
Jelle Saldien is full Professor and spokesperson of the research group of Product Development at the Department of Product Development of the Faculty of Design Sciences at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. He is also part time professor at the Department of Industrial Systems Engineering and Product Design of the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture at Ghent University, Belgium.
He received his M.S. degree in Industrial Science ICT at DeNayer Institute (now KULeuven) in 2003 and an additional M.S. degree in Product Development at Artesis (now UAntwerpen) in 2005. In 2009, he received his Ph.D. at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel on the design and development of the social robot Probo. From 2010, he was lecturer in Industrial Design at the Howest University College West Flanders. Since 2013 he is appointed as Professor Industrial Design at Ghent University. From 2014-2017 he was research coordinator of the UGent Industrial Design Center and steering member of Flanders Make VD4.
From 2018, he joined the imec-mict-ugent research group and became Principal Investigator in imec. In the meantime, his research has led to 'Opsoro'; an open platform for social robots, for which he has been honored with the 2019 annual price science communication by the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and Arts. In 2017 Jelle was listed as one of the 50 Tech Pioneers in Flanders by news agency De Tijd. In 2019, he started a UGent spinoff named Creative Therapy, that aims to digitize rehabilitation therapy. Furthermore in 2019, Jelle was appointed as UGent board member in the Ministry Of Makers and was appointed Principal Investigator at Flanders AI. In 2020 Jelle was selected for a Ted Talk at TedXGhent 2020. In 2021, Jelle was selected for UGent to compete in the Enlight International Teaching and Learning Award 2021, where he received the runner-up. During the COVID pandemic, Jelle and his team got the opportunity to design the user experience for a new COVID-19 test, based on imec’s chip technology. In 2022, Jelle became co-chair for Engineering, Design & Visualization in XRValley.
Jelle Saldien is author of over 130 technical publications, proceedings, editorials and books. His research looks at the design of interactions between human and technology (Interaction Design). This includes both the physical and digital aspects of future products as perceived by users. Emphasis is placed on new methods for prototyping and the interfaces in Product Design, Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and Human Robot Interaction (HRI), as well as involving (the right) users for product innovation. Currently there is a strong focus on user experience design, phygital interfaces and open modular system design for smart products.