Chen Peng

Profile

Chen Peng is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds. Her background is electrical engineering and human-technology interaction (i.e., understanding human perspectives in interacting with various technologies).

Chen received her PhD in human factors in automated driving from ITS, University of Leeds in 2024, where she was also a Maries Curie Fellow. She was a visiting researcher at Bosch (2021) and TU Delft (2023), involved in collaborative studies. She holds a Master's degree in Human Technology Interaction from the Eindhoven University of Technology (2019), and a Bachelor's degree in Optoelectronic Information Science and Engineering from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (2017).

She has been involved in multiple large EU- and UK- funded projects, such as Hi-Drive (Horizon 2020), SHAPE-IT (Marie Curie ITN), and HumanDrive (CCAV and Catapult). Her research has published in leading journals such as Human Factors and Applied Ergonomics.

She is an active reviewer in the community, regularly reviewing for journals such as Applied Ergonomics, Human Factors, IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems (T-ITS), and International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction (IJHCI), as well as conferences, such as ACM AutoUI, IMWUT, and IEEE IV. She has also co-organised international conference (AutoUI 2021) and multiple symposiums at IEEE conferences.

Research interests

Chen’s research interests include user comfort in automated driving, automated driving styles, communication strategies, inclusive designs in transport, and broad human technology interaction. Her doctoral research focuses on passenger comfort in automated driving, investigating the role of driving styles and the conceptualisation of comfort, and her postdoctoral research extends this understanding to real-world settings. She is passionate about including more marginalised groups, such as older adults, in research, to provide more inclusive solutions. Chen is proficient in both qualitative and quantitative, analytical approaches.

• User comfort and automated driving styles
• Distributed human automation interaction
• Kinematic communication for onboard users
• Inclusive transport design (incl. transport modes, infrastructure, service)
• Novel measurement approaches for subjective states (subjective, physiological, etc)

My talk about my research at the SHAPE-IT project final event

Qualifications

• PhD. Human Factors in Automated Driving, Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds
• MSc. Human Technology Interaction, Eindhoven University of Technology
• BEng. Optoelectronic Information Science and Engineering, Uni. of Electro. Sci. and Tech. of China

Student education

Lecturer, Human Centred Deisgn, part of MECH5495M Engineering Psychology and Human Factors (2025 – present)

Supervisor, TRAN5199M Master dissertation, Institute for Transport (2024 – present)

Teaching Assistant, Research Skills 4, School of Psychology (2023)

Research groups and institutes

• Human Factors and Safety