According to the announcement of The Canadian Applied and Industrial Mathematics Society and the Fields Institute, Dr. Chen has been awarded the 2017 CAIMS-Fields Industrial Mathematics Prize for his seminal contributions to industrial and applied mathematics, computational science, and modelling of flow in porous media.

Throughout his career, Dr. Chen has led many collaborative projects with industrial partners including Suncor, Nexen Energy, Petróleos Mexicanos, China National Petroleum Corp., and Computer Modelling Group. His research has had major impact on practical applications in the oil and energy sectors, as evidenced by his 15 patents.

Dr. Chen’s publication record is stellar, with 16 books and over 500 refereed journal papers covering problems ranging from existence-uniqueness theory, finite element approximations, homogenization, and parallel algorithms, with applications to multi-phase porous media flow, CO2 sequestration, and semiconductor device simulations. Dr. Chen has also made major contributions to training, having supervised over 100 graduate students and postdocs in industrial applications of mathematics and advanced computing algorithms.

As part of the award, Dr. Chen will be invited to deliver a lecture at the CAIMS Annual Meeting taking place in Halifax from July 17 to 21, 2017.