Professor Liu Chen received the Bachelor's degree from National Taiwan University in 1966, and the Ph.D. degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1972. From 1972 to 1974, he was a postdoctoral staff member at Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersey. In 1974, he joined the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory as a research scientist, and later also became a faculty member in the Department of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University. In 1993, he was appointed as Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine, California, and in March 2012, he became an Above-scale Professor Emeritus. Currently, he is a Professor of Physics and the Director of the Institute for Fusion Theory and Simulation of Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China. Professor Liu Chen is a preeminent theoretical plasma physicist with broad research interests. His current research is focused on waves, instabilities, and turbulence in magnetized laboratory and space plasmas, as well as the nonlinear dynamics of coherent high-power radiation devices.
Professor Liu Chen's research is characterized by discoveries and seminal contributions of the highest intellectual caliber. In the area of space plasma physics, his most acknowledged research is on long-period magnetic pulsations in the magnetosphere. His contributions, with major impact on space as well as laboratory plasma physics, also include the explanation of the physics basis of the shear-Alfvén continuous spectrum in plasma heating, and the linear and nonlinear dynamics of kinetic Alfvén waves. In magnetic fusion research, Professor Liu Chen also laid the foundations of nonlinear gyrokinetic theory, which remains one of the most widely cited works on the subject even after the large increase in gyrokinetic simulation activities since the mid-1990s. He also made important contributions to the theory of collective effects due to Alfvén modes excited by fast ions. Professor Liu Chen's theory of fishbone oscillations is also a work of exceptional impact, particularly as a clear interpretation of the fishbone mode in experimental observation, as a prototype of collective modes in fusion plasmas. In addition, Professor Liu Chen demonstrated the crucial roles of toroidal geometry and plasma nonuniformities in determining both the discrete Alfvén eigenmode spectra, of which toroidal Alfvén eigenmode became a paradigm, and energetic particle modes, resonantly excited from the shear Alfvén continuum. His most recent contributions address the nonlinear dynamics of drift waves and drift-Alfvén waves in nonuniform toroidal plasmas and, more generally, the nonlinear physics of complex nonuniform systems.
Professor Liu Chen's citation for the 2012 James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics reads:
“For seminal contributions to plasma theory, including geomagnetic pulsations, kinetic Alfvén waves, toroidal Alfvén eigenmodes, fishbone oscillations and energetic particle modes, nonlinear dynamics of drift waves, and nonlinear gyrokinetic equations.”
Professor Liu Chen received the American Physical Society (APS) Award for Excellence in Plasma Physics Research in 2004. In 2008, he was awarded the Hannes Alfvén Prize by the European Physical Society (EPS). He is a Fellow of the APS, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), as well as the American Geophysical Union (AGU).
