Dr. Chen is a Professor in the Nanoengineering Department at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). He is also a faculty member of the Institute of Engineering in Medicine and the Clinical Translational Research Institute at UCSD. Before joining UCSD, Dr. Chen had been a Professor and a Pearlie D. Henderson Centennial Endowed Faculty Fellow in Engineering in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Texas at Austin. From 2008 to 2010, Dr. Chen served as the Program Director for the Nanomanufacturing Program in the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Dr. Chen has a good track record for developing well-funded research programs with funding from NIH, NSF, DoD, ONR, AFOSR, American Heart Association, Texas Instruments, Intel, and IBM. His group has published over 110 peer-reviewed publications and filed more than 10 patents/provisional patents. Three of the patents were licensed to CardioSpectra, Inc. and later acquired by Volcano Corporation (NASDAQ:VOLC) with $25M in cash.