Chris Molek joined the UWF/IHMC Intelligent Systems and Robotics PhD program in January of 2024. His research interests are determining effective means to aggregate and distill large quantities of information into the essential aspects for decision making of a system. On the human side of human-machine teaming he is interested in the reduction of the overload factor that commonly occurs when we are presented with vast amounts of data, especially when a person is already in a circumstance where their cognitive load is high.  His interest in this area has developed over the past decade of leading cutting-edge research at Air Force Research Laboratory.

Originally from Wisconsin, he earned his bachelor’s degrees in chemistry and mathematics at University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. He earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of Georgia. From there, he joined the Air Force Research Laboratory as a National Research Council Post Doc. After his Post Doc, he led and established significant capabilities/expertise for understanding material-property relationships of explosives at Eglin Air Force Base which has resulted in world class research.  While there, he led a multidisciplinary research team that spanned Department of Defense laboratories, Department of Energy laboratories, Academia and Industry.

He is very excited about shifting gears in pursuit of another Ph.D. at UWF under the advisement of Drs. Niranjan Suri and Brent Venable.

In his spare time, he enjoys activities with family, kayaking, the outdoors and reading.