Dr. Chen received his Ph.D. degree in the areas of human-computer interaction, information visualization, and visual analytics from the School of Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University (SFU) in Canada. He earned Bachelor degree of Engineering from the Tsinghua University (China), and a Master of Science degree in Information Technology from SFU.

Dr. Chen have been working in multi-disciplinary domains for two decades, starting from an engineer, a 3D illustrator and animator, then a web designer and Internet system developer, finally an academic researcher and educator. In early 90s He pioneered in China to bring 3D modeling, rendering and animation into architecture design. Dr. Chen started to develop Internet-based applications in Canada since 2000, ranging from website design, mobile phone SMS platforms, information management systems, Flash online games, E-commerce, to social network applications, collaborated with professionals in different domains and communicated with different kinds of clients.

His research covers interdisciplinary domains of Information Visualization, Visual Analytics, Digital Media, and Human Computer Interaction. He seeks to design, model, and construct new forms of interaction in visualization and system design, by which the system can minimize its influence on design and analysis, and become a true free extension of human’s brain and hand.

Dr. Chen conducts basic and applied research with an emphasis on implementation. He believes that high quality prototype implementations of designed mechanisms are essential to future theoretical progress in the field and to its application outside of academia. Certainly evaluation is equally important as the implementation. His research mixes theory, analysis, design, implementation, and review. The methodology executes iterative loops of problem awareness, suggestion, development, and evaluation.