His dissertation in computer science at Northeastern University refined a framework for modeling the flow of commodities through complex networks. His research interests include big data analytics, model-based forecasting, and computational economics. Chen’s current projects include the development of several tools used for modeling epidemics, analyzing social network dynamics, and simulating global-scale populations. His work has been published in journals and peer-reviewed conferences, such as Journal of the ACM, PLoS ONE, Computational Economics, JEBO, STOC, and ICS.