Previously he was an assistant professor in Department of Energy Plant Research Laboratory (PRL) and Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Michigan State University from 2009 to 2016. Dr. Chen received his B.E. in Computer Science from Southeast University in Nanjing, China in 1997. After working in the Jiangsu Electric Power Company Information Center for several years, he decided to transition from industry to academia. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the National University of Singapore (NUS) under the supervision of Dr. Wynne Hsu, Dr. Mong Li Lee and Dr. See-Kiong Ng in 2007. He was a research associate in the bioinformatics laboratory of Dr. Seung Y. Rhee at the Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford University from 2007 to 2009.