[3] Chen was an undergraduate at the Renmin University of China, where she earned a bachelor's degree in economics in 1996, specializing in commodity science.
However, in 2001 she moved to the program in information sciences and technology at Pennsylvania State University, where she completed her Ph.D. in 2005.
[4] After a short assistant professorship at Framingham State College and postdoctoral research at Yahoo!
Research, she joined Harvard University as an assistant professor of computer science in 2008.
[3] The Pennsylvania State University alumni gave Chen their Graduate School Alumni Society (GSAS) Early Career Award in 2016.