Chou obtained his PhD at UC Santa Barbara in 1971 and was a postdoc. at Toronto Univ. in 1972. He is chair prof. and dir. of the Research Center for Biodiversity, China Medical U. He was: Dir., Inst. of Botany, Academia Sinica, and dir., Life Sci. Research Promotion Center for NSC, 1989-1996; vice-pres. and Natl. chair prof., Natl. Sun Yat-Sen U., 1999-2002; pres. and chair prof., Natl. Pingtung U. of Sci. and Tech., 2002-2006; and vice-pres., IUBS, 1997-2000, PSA, 2011-2015; Vice-Pres. and EC member, SCOPE. His honors: Academic Award in Agriculture, MOE; Distinguished Research Award, NSC; Highest Award of International Academic Cooperation, Russian Academy of Science, 1999; and Life Time Achievements Award 2009, by Inter. Allelopathy Foundation. Life Time Contri. to Biol. Sci. Award, and Life Time Achiev. Award of Bot. Soc. of Taiwan. He is an Academician, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, 1994.

Educated at Tianjin Normal Univ., Nankai Univ. (MSc) and Northwestern Univ., USA (PhD, 1987). He is a professor/director of academic committee of State Key Lab of Elemento-oganic Chemitry, Nankai Univ.; and professor/director of Center of Basic Molecular Science, Tsinghua Univ.. He was previously: vice president of Nankai Univ.; and vice minister, Ministry of Sci. and Tech., China. He is recognized for his work on structural effects on bond dissociation energies of organic compounds. His contributions include the widely used solution methods to determine homolytic bond dissociation energies of R-H bonds and establishment of the Y-NO (Y = S, O, N, metal) bond energy scales. He is member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, 2001, and a fellow of the Royal Chemical Society (2007).

Chen is professor of physics at Peking Univ.; vice-pres., CHINA-ICSU Council; honorary pres., Beijing Assoc. of Science and Tech.; and vice-pres. of 25th Exec. Council, IUPAP. He is internationally recognized for his work on particle accelerators with pioneering achievements in the R and D of superconducting and heavy ion linear accelerators in China. His honours include: Award for Science and Tech. Progress, HLHL Found.; First Prize for Achievements in State High-tech program; Second Award for National Science and Technology Progress; First Prizes, State Commission of Science and Technology; Cross of Merit on ribbon, Federal Republic of Germany; DSc (h.c.) from 4 institutions; and honorary professor of physics at Xi'an Jiaotong, Jilin and Harbin Industrial Universities. His membership includes CAS, New York Academy of Sciences and IOP, UK.

Chen is an expert in control theory at the Institute of Systems Science, AMSS, of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in Beijing. His research interests are mainly in stochastic systems, including system identification, adaptive control, and stochastic approximation and its applications to systems, control, and signal processing. In addition to his research, he is also active in writing educative reviews and monographs. He has authored/co-authored more than 200 journal papers and the following four monographs: Recursive Identification and Parameter Estimation, Stochastic Approximation and its Applications, Identification and Stochastic Adaptive Control, and Recursive Estimation and Control for Stochastic Systems. An academician of CAS, IEEE Fellow, IFAC Fellow, he has received the IFAC Outstanding Service Award.