Xiaodong Chen

Professor Chen Xiaodong is the President’s Chair Professor in Materials Science and Engineering, Professor of Chemistry (by courtesy) and Professor of Medicine (by courtesy) at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU). He is the Director of Innovative Centre for Flexible Devices (iFLEX) at NTU and the Director of Max Planck – NTU Joint Lab for Artificial Senses.

He received his B.S. degree (Honours) in chemistry from Fuzhou University, China, in 1999, M.S. degree (Honours) in physical chemistry from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2002, and PhD degree (Summa Cum Laude) in biochemistry from the University of Münster, Germany, in 2006. After his postdoctoral fellow training at Northwestern University, USA, he joined NTU as a National Research Foundation (NRF) Fellow and Nanyang Assistant Professor (NAP) in 2009 in (MSE). He was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2013, and Full Professor in 2016.

Professor Chen’s research focuses on developing soft materials for the applications in flexible devices, energy storage, and healthcare. His research topics cover interactive materials and devices, integrated nano-bio interface, and cyber-human interfaces and systems. So far, he has published over 280 high profiled articles in Nature Nano, Nature Electronics, Nature Chemistry, Nature Communications, Angewandte Chemie, JACS, Advanced Materials, and so on. His research work was highlighted by more than 100 local and overseas’ media. Professor Chen’s research work on generating industrial impact is evident from his more 50 filed/grant patents, nine of which had been licensed for commercial development, and more than 5 projects with industry. He is also the co-founder of a spin-off company, Quickcharge Pte Ltd, commercializing cutting-edge energy storage technology.

Professor Chen’s achievement in research and innovation was recognized nationally and internationally with his many awards, namely the Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry, Singapore NRF Investigatorship, Small Young Innovator Award, Singapore NRF Fellowship, Nanyang Research Award, Lubrizol Young Materials Science Investigator Award, Mitsui Chemicals-SNIC Industry Award in Materials and Nano-chemistry, and Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award from Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

Professor Chen exhibits strong student mentorship and supervision. He teaches undergraduate courses and students commended him as a passionate teacher. More than 10 URECA, FYP, and PhD students have won different awards under his supervision. Among the PhD students and research fellows he supervised, more than 40 of them have secured academic position at different universities after training. As another evidence to his outstanding mentoring and supervising, he was awarded the Teacher of the Year Award by the School in 2013, 2016 and 2017, respectively.

Professor Chen served as Assistant Chair (Graduate Studies) at MSE in 2014-2016 and Associate Chair (Faculty) at MSE in 2016-2018. He initiated the MSE-Colloquium@NTU, which is a monthly event where distinguished scientists, inventors, entrepreneurs, and publishing editors are invited to give presentations to MSE PhD students and staff. In addition, he serves as a member to various committees at the school, college and university level. He was recognised by Singapore Ministry of Education for Service to Education Award in 2020.

Finally, he is actively involved in services to the global scientific community. For instance, he has organized more than 10 international research symposia and workshops. Currently, he is an Associate Editor of ACS Materials Letters. He also is the member of editorial advisory board of Advanced Materials, ACS Nano, Small, Small Methods, Advanced Materials Technology, Advanced Intelligent Systems, Batteries & Supercaps, Materials Today Energy, ACS Applied Bio Materials, Nanoscale Horizons, Nanoscale, Nanoscale Advances, Small Structure and Analysis & Sensing.