Chen awarded A.V. Balakrishnan Early Career Award for Excellence in Scientific Research
The award is from the Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern California
Xudong Chen, associate professor of electrical & systems engineering in the McKelvey School of Engineering, has been awarded the 2023 A.V. Balakrishnan Early Career Award for Excellence in Scientific Research from the Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern California (USC). He will receive the award Oct. 24 at USC.
The award is funded by Sophia Balakrishnan in memory of her husband, A.V. “Bal” Balakrishnan, a well-known professor and researcher in systems. Balakrishnan earned master’s and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering and mathematics, respectively, at USC. He was a professor at UCLA for more than five decades.
Chen joined the McKelvey Engineering faculty this fall from the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he was an assistant professor. He also is an affiliate faculty member in the Department of Applied Mathematics. He earned a bachelor’s degree in electronics engineering from Tsinghua University in 2009 and a doctorate in electrical engineering from Harvard University in 2014.
His research interests are in control theory, decision theory, stochastic processes, optimization, network science and their applications in modeling, analysis and control of complex systems. Chen's group develops advanced mathematical tools and novel engineering methods to tackle emerging challenges in large-scale multi-agent systems. Applications of Chen’s research range from quantum systems, biological networks and social science, to robotics, drones and spacecrafts.
Chen received the 2021 Donald P. Eckman Award from the American Automatic Control Council, an NSF CAREER Award in 2021, and the AFOSR Young Investigator Award in 2020.
