Xie Chen

The native form of this personal name is Chen Xie. This article uses Western name order when mentioning individuals.

Xie Chen
陈谐
Alma mater	Tsinghua University Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Awards	New Horizons in Physics Prize (2020)
Scientific career
Fields	Condensed matter theory Quantum information
Institutions	University of California, Berkeley California Institute of Technology
Doctoral advisor	Issac Chuang Xiao-Gang Wen

Xie Chen (Chinese: 陈谐; pinyin: Chén Xié) is a Chinese physicist and a professor of theoretical physics at the California Institute of Technology.^[1] Her work covers both the field of condensed matter physics and quantum information, with a focus on many-body quantum mechanical systems with unconventional emergent phenomena.^[2] She won the 2020 New Horizons in Physics Prize for "incisive contributions to the understanding of topological states of matter and the relationships between them"^[3]

Early life and education

Chen received her bachelor's degree in physics from Tsinghua University in 2006 and her Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2012 under the supervision of Isaac Chuang and Xiao-Gang Wen.^[4] From 2012–2014, Chen was a Miller Research Fellow in University of California, Berkeley. In 2014, she joined California Institute of Technology as an assistant professor and in 2017 she was promoted to associate professor.

Research

Chen's research centers on novel phases and phase transitions in quantum condensed matter systems. Her major research topics include topological order in strongly correlated systems, dynamics in many-body systems, tensor network representation, and quantum information application.

Awards and honors

• Simons Investigator (2021)^[5]
• New Horizons in Physics Prize (2020)
• Sloan Research Fellowship (2017)^[6]
• National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Award (2017)^[7]
• Miller Research Fellowship, UC Berkeley (2012)
• Outstanding Chinese Self-financed Students Abroad (one of nine extraordinary prizewinners, 2012)
• Andrew M. Lockett III Memorial Fund Award for best theoretical physics graduate student at MIT (2011)
• Whiteman Fellowship for graduate study of physics at MIT (2006)

References

1. "Xie Chen". www.its.caltech.edu. Retrieved 2019-09-07.
2. "Caltech Faculty Honored with Breakthrough and New Horizons Prizes". www.caltech.edu. 6 September 2019. Retrieved 2019-09-07.
3. "Breakthrough Prize – Winners Of The 2020 Breakthrough Prize In Life Sciences, Fundamental Physics And Mathematics Announced". Breakthrough Prize. Retrieved 2019-09-07.
4. "Physics Tree - Xie Chen". academictree.org. Retrieved 2020-01-10.
5. "Simons Investigators". Simons Foundation. 2018-07-10. Retrieved 2021-07-18.
6. "Two Physicists Named Sloan Fellows". www.caltech.edu. Retrieved 2020-01-10.
7. "Fracton order: from quantum hard drive to foliated manifold". Duke Electrical and Computer Engineering. 2019-01-18. Retrieved 2020-01-10.