Lian-Kuan Chen is a professor in the Department of Information Engineering at The Chinese University of Hong Kong and the founder of its Lightwave Communications Laboratory. He took a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering at National Taiwan University in 1983 and master's and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering at Columbia University in New York in 1992, the same year he joined CUHK and set up the laboratory. He chaired the Department of Information Engineering from 2004 to 2006, served on the engineering panel of the Hong Kong Research Grants Council from 2007 to 2013, and directed the Centre for Advanced Research in Photonics from 2010 to 2015. His research covers visible-light communication, optical wireless communication, next-generation local access networks, transmission systems, optical and electronic signal processing, performance monitoring and biophotonics, a span that runs from long-haul fibre transmission to indoor visible-light links. He has published more than 300 papers in refereed international conferences and journals, is a Fellow of Optica (formerly the Optical Society) and a life senior member of the IEEE in its Photonics and Communications societies, and has served as an associate editor of international journals in the field.
Chen built CUHK's lightwave communications laboratory as a single base for fibre transmission, optical wireless and visible-light research, and took part in the development of local engineering research through both departmental leadership and research-grant assessment.
Achievements
- 1992 · Completed his PhD in electrical engineering at Columbia University and joined CUHK, where he set up the Lightwave Communications Laboratory.
- 2004 · Became chairman of the Department of Information Engineering, serving until 2006.
- 2010 · Directed the Centre for Advanced Research in Photonics until 2015.