[7] Born in Buffalo, New York, Chew grew up in Singapore, returning to the US after high school for further studies.
Her PhD thesis in the Operations Research Center at MIT was focused on the mathematics of tonality.
[11][12] This is a mathematical model using spirals to describe how humans perceive pitches, chords and keys in mainstream Western music.
[13] Chew was an assistant professor at the University of Southern California (USC) from 2001 to 2011,[14] where she was the inaugural honouree of the Viterbi Early Career Chair[15] and founded the Music Computation and Cognition Laboratory.
[17] As a concert pianist, Chew plays for audiences while communicating her research, often by showing mathematical visualisations alongside the performances.