Haitao Chen

Ph.D. Candidate in Biomedical Engineering at Duke University

I work in the Computational Optics Lab, advised by Prof. Roarke Horstmeyer. My research bridges optical physics and machine learning to build high-throughput imaging systems that reveal biological dynamics previously invisible to standard microscopy.

Seeking Summer 2027 internships. Get in touch

Portrait of Haitao Chen

Research interests

  • Computational Imaging
  • Machine Learning
  • Differentiable Optics
  • Inverse Problems

Selected publications

All publicationsView all

Communications Biology · 2026

High-throughput multi-camera array microscope platform for automated 3D behavioral analysis of swimming zebrafish larvae

Haitao Chen, Kevin Li, Lucas Kreiss, Paul Reamey, ..., Roarke Horstmeyer

Optics Letters · 2025Editors' Pick

Curvature-adaptive gigapixel microscopy at submicron resolution and centimeter scale

Xi Yang*, Haitao Chen*, Lucas Kreiss, Clare B. Cook, ..., Roarke Horstmeyer

In the press: Optica, Phys.org, Bioengineer

Optics Express · 2025

Multierror learning enhanced fluorescence diffusion tomography in reflection geometry

Haitao Chen, Kaixian Liu, Yuxuan Jiang, Yuxiang Dou, Yong Deng

Education & experience

  1. Duke University

    Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering

    Developing next-generation computational microscopes and high-throughput imaging systems.

    Advisor: Prof. Roarke Horstmeyer

    2024 – Present

  2. Rice University

    Visiting Researcher

    Kilohertz computational photoacoustic tomography and 3D image reconstruction.

    Advisor: Prof. Lei Li

    2023 – 2024

  3. Huazhong University of Science and Technology

    B.Eng. in Biomedical Engineering

    Fluorescence diffuse optical tomography, physics-informed 3D reconstruction, and real-time optical property inversion of whole tissue.

    Advisor: Prof. Yong Deng

    2020 – 2024