Ata Otaran is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Human Computer Interaction Lab at Saarland University. He carried out his PhD degree in the Robotics Group at the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Queen Mary University of London and worked on using ankle gesture-based locomotion techniques for interacting with virtual environments. He received his M.Sc. in Mechatronics Engineering and B.Sc.in Mechatronics Engineering with minor in Mathematics from Sabanci University, Istanbul. His M.Sc. thesis was on designing a novel admittance type force control device for the education of force control topics in university courses. His primary research interests are in the field of physical human-machine interaction, particularly use of haptics for virtual reality and educational interfaces.