Chen Wen-tsuen (; born 27 May 1948) is an ethnic Taiwanese

computer scientist A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus (al ...

, a distinguished research fellow at the

Academia Sinica Academia Sinica (AS, la, 1=Academia Sinica, 3=Chinese Academy; ), headquartered in Nangang, Taipei, is the national academy of Taiwan. Founded in Nanking, the academy supports research activities in a wide variety of disciplines, ranging from ...

and a lifelong national chair of the

Ministry of Education An education ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for education. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of Education, Department of Education, and Ministry of Pub ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

. From 2006 to 2010, he was the president of the

National Tsing Hua University National Tsing Hua University (NTHU; ) is a public research university in Hsinchu City, Taiwan. National Tsing Hua University was first founded in Beijing. After the Chinese Civil War, the then-president of the university, Mei Yiqi, and other ...

, a premier research university in

Early life

Chen received his B.Sc. degree (1970) in nuclear engineering at the

, and his M.Sc. degree (1973) and Ph.D. degree (1976) in electrical engineering and computer sciences at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. He has been with the National Tsing Hua University since 1976 when there were no computer, communication, and IC industries in

. He has since witnessed and contributed to its development from an agrarian economy to a world center for

ICT ICT may refer to: Sciences and technology * Information and communications technology * Image Constraint Token, in video processing * Immunochromatographic test, a rapid immunoassay used to detect diseases such as anthrax * In-circuit test, in ...

technologies and products.

Career

Chen started his academic career as a faculty member of the computer science program of the Institute of Applied Mathematics of

. He helped found the Department of Computer Science of the university in 1977. He has also helped develop the

software engineering Software engineering is a systematic engineering approach to software development. A software engineer is a person who applies the principles of software engineering to design, develop, maintain, test, and evaluate computer software. The term '' ...

program of the

Institute for Information Industry The Institute for Information Industry (III; , abbreviated ) was established in 1979 as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) to support the communication sector in Taiwan under the supervision of the Republic of China Ministry of Economic Af ...

, a non-governmental organization for promoting information industry in

, since its founding in 1979. In early 1980s, Chen established his computer network laboratory and was one of the pioneering computer network researchers in Taiwan. Chen served as the chairman of the Department of Computer Science of National Tsing Hua University from 1983 until 1988. From 1988 for four years, he was a science and technology advisor to the

and helped establish the Taiwan Academic Network (TANet), the first

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

in Taiwan. From 1992 to 1996, he was on leave from National Tsing Hua University to serve as the director of the Advisory Office of Ministry of Education to advise on education policy and improve higher education in Taiwan. Chen founded the Computer and Communication Research Center of the university in 1994 and served as its founding director for 10 years. He also founded the College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 1998 and served as its founding dean for 6 years. From 2003 to 2006, he was the vice chancellor (research) of the

University System of Taiwan The University System of Taiwan (UST; ) is a research-led university alliance in Taiwan. List of institutions *National Tsing Hua University (NTHU) *National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (NYCU) *National Central University (NCU) *National C ...

, a university alliance of four top research universities in northern Taiwan. In February 2006, Chen was appointed as president of the National Tsing Hua University. During his 4-year term of presidency, the university was noted for initiating the "Project Thousand Points of Light" ( 繁星計畫) university entrance program, which was enthusiastically endorsed and adopted by the Ministry of Education, and launching the

Tsing Hua College Tsinghua University (; abbr. THU) is a national public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education. The university is a member of the C9 League, Double First Class University Plan, Project 9 ...

(清華學院]), a residential college for undergraduate education, the first of its kind in Taiwan. Since August 2006, he had been a distinguished chair professor of the university. In 2007 Chen attended an

Association of East Asian Research Universities The Association of East Asian Research Universities (AEARU) is an East Asian organisation comprising nineteen research universities. It was established in January 1996 at the suggestion of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. The purpos ...

Board of Directors meeting and the same year he visited Japan along with Professors Chungmin Chen and Mao Jiun Wang. Also education and research of the university was significantly improved and well recognized internationally. In 2010, the

Times Higher Education World University Rankings The ''Times Higher Education World University Rankings'' (often referred to as the THE Rankings) is an annual publication of university rankings by the ''Times Higher Education'' (THE) magazine. The publisher had collaborated with Quacquarelli ...

put National Tsing Hua University 107th in the world, advanced from 343rd in 2006. In 2008 Chen met with Vice President

Chang Shih-Lin Chang may refer to: People Surname * Chang (surname), the romanization of several separate Chinese surnames * Chang or Jang (Korean name), romanizations of the Korean surname Given name * Chang Bunker () (1811–1874), one of the origina ...

and together they held a press conference with

Thomson Reuters Thomson Reuters Corporation ( ) is a Canadian multinational media conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where it is headquartered at the Bay Adelaide Centre. Thomson Reuters was created by the Thomson Corpora ...

Essential Science Indicators. In March 2012 he joined the

as a distinguished research fellow of the Institute of Information Science. Besides his contributions to education, Chen has also contributed to advancement of industrial technologies in Taiwan by serving as consultant and advisor in various levels of

Taiwan government The Government of the Republic of China, is the national government of the Republic of China whose ''de facto'' territory currently consists of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other island groups in the "free area". Governed by the Dem ...

and industrial research organizations including Ministry of Economic Affairs,

, and

Industrial Technology Research Institute The Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI; ) is a technology research and development institution in Taiwan. Founded in 1973, ITRI has contributed to moving Taiwan's industries from labor-intensive to innovation-driven. ITRI is hea ...

. From 1990 for 14 years, he served as co-chairman and chairman of the technical evaluation committee of the industrial technology research grants program of Ministry of Economic Affairs, which is recognized as one of the most successful programs in advancing industrial technologies in Taiwan. From July 2006 for 4 years, he was a science and technology advisor to

Premier Premier is a title for the head of government in central governments, state governments and local governments of some countries. A second in command to a premier is designated as a deputy premier. A premier will normally be a head of governm ...

Executive Yuan The Executive Yuan () is the executive branch of the government of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Its leader is the Premier, who is appointed by the President of the Republic of China, and requires confirmation by the Legislative Yuan. ...

of Taiwan. Starting in January 2011, he is the program director of the National Program for Intelligent Electronics of the

National Science Council The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC; ) is a statutory agency of Executive Yuan of the Republic of China (Taiwan) for the promotion and funding of academic research, development of science and technology and science parks. NSTC is ...

, aiming at developing advanced and innovative industrial technologies for bio-medical, green, automotive, and

electronics.

Research

Chen's early research work was on

. His research results have been used in an automated

software testing Software testing is the act of examining the artifacts and the behavior of the software under test by validation and verification. Software testing can also provide an objective, independent view of the software to allow the business to apprecia ...

system designed for

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

of United States. Chen pioneered the design of computer networks and parallel processing systems in early 1980s. He designed the first

computer network A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are ...

and the first parallel processing system with its

parallel processor Parallel computing is a type of computation in which many calculations or Process (computing), processes are carried out simultaneously. Large problems can often be divided into smaller ones, which can then be solved at the same time. There are ...

chips in

. From 2000 for eight years, Chen was the

principal investigator In many countries, the term principal investigator (PI) refers to the holder of an independent grant and the lead researcher for the grant project, usually in the sciences, such as a laboratory study or a clinical trial. The phrase is also often us ...

of a project under the Program for Promoting Academic Excellence of Universities, jointly sponsored by the

and the

, leading a team of researchers from

and

National Chiao Tung University National Chiao Tung University (NCTU; ) was a public research university located in Hsinchu, Taiwan. Established in 1896 as Nanyang Public School by an imperial edict of the Guangxu Emperor, it was one of China's leading universities. After th ...

to research on broadband

packet switching In telecommunications, packet switching is a method of grouping Data (computing), data into ''network packet, packets'' that are transmitted over a digital Telecommunications network, network. Packets are made of a header (computing), header and ...

networks, heterogeneous

wireless network A wireless network is a computer network that uses wireless data connections between network nodes. Wireless networking is a method by which homes, telecommunications networks and business installations avoid the costly process of introducing c ...

s, and advanced

applications. Chen's major contributions to parallel processing are on investigation of capability of parallel systems and proposing

parallel algorithm In computer science, a parallel algorithm, as opposed to a traditional serial algorithm, is an algorithm which can do multiple operations in a given time. It has been a tradition of computer science to describe serial algorithms in abstract machin ...

s of fundamental importance. In computer networking, he has done pioneering works on secure broadcasting, design of broadband switches, and quality-of-service techniques in

cellular network A cellular network or mobile network is a communication network where the link to and from end nodes is wireless. The network is distributed over land areas called "cells", each served by at least one fixed-location transceiver (typically thre ...

s. He received numerous awards for his achievements in computer networking and parallel processing research, including Outstanding Research Awards of

, the prestigious Academic Award and National Chair of Ministry of Education, the Technical Achievement Award and Taylor L. Booth Education Award of

IEEE Computer Society The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operati ...

. Chen has been an editor and Editor-in-Chief of the ''Journal of Information Science and Engineering'' of the

. He is the founding General Chair of the

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Systems The International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Systems (ICPADS) is an academic conference sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society that brings together researchers and practitioners from academia and industry around the world to advance the ...

and the General Chair of 2000 IEEE

International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems The International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS) is the oldest conference in the field of distributed computing systems in the world. It was launched by the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Distributed Processing ...

among others. He is a Fellow Member of the

for contribution to software engineering and parallel processing systems design and a Fellow of the Chinese Society for Management of Technology.

Awards and honors

*Distinguished Computer Professionals Award, Ministry of Economic Affairs, 1984 *Distinguished Visitor (local computer networks),

, 1984–1985 *

Sun Yat-sen Sun Yat-sen (; also known by several other names; 12 November 1866 – 12 March 1925)Singtao daily. Saturday edition. 23 October 2010. section A18. Sun Yat-sen Xinhai revolution 100th anniversary edition . was a Chinese politician who serve ...

Technology Innovation Award,

Academics and Culture Foundation, 1989 *Outstanding Research Awards,

, 1990, 1992, 1994 *Distinguished Visitor (broadband communications networks),

, 1994–1997 *IEEE Fellow, 1994 *Academic Award in Engineering,

, 1994 *Outstanding Scholarship Chair, Foundation for the Advancement of Outstanding Scholarship, 1996–2001 *Technical Achievement Award,

, 1999 * Pan Wen Yuan Outstanding Research Award, Pan Wen Yuan Foundation, 2000 * National Chair,

, 2001–2004 *Outstanding Research Fellow Award,

, 2002 *Medal of Honor in Information Sciences, Institute of Information and Computing Machinery ROC, 2003 *Tsing Hua Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences,

, 2003 *Distinguished Visitor (wireless networks),

, 2004–2006 *Outstanding Contribution Award, Taiwan IC Design Society, 2004 *Fellow, Chinese Society for Management of Technology, 2004 * Lifelong National Chair,

, 2004 *Distinguished Alumnus Award in Computer Sciences and Engineering,

, 2006 *Tsing Hua Distinguished Chair Professor,

, 2006 *C. V. Ramamoorthy Distinguished Scholar Award, Society for Design and Process Science, 2008 *Outstanding Leadership Award,

, 2010 *Eminent Researcher,

National Research Council Canada The National Research Council Canada (NRC; french: Conseil national de recherches Canada) is the primary national agency of the Government of Canada dedicated to science and technology research & development. It is the largest federal research ...

, 2010 *Taylor L. Booth Education Award,

, 2011

References

External links

Wen-Tsuen Chen's Home page in Academia SinicaHome page of National Tsing Hua University
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chen, Wen-Tsuen 1948 births Living people Taiwanese computer scientists Fellow Members of the IEEE National Tsing Hua University alumni UC Berkeley College of Engineering alumni Scientists from Taichung Presidents of National Tsing Hua University