Professor CHEN Shiyi studied mechanics and received his first degree in 1981 from Zhejiang University, followed by a MSc degree and a PhD degree from Peking University in 1984 and 1987.

From 1987 to 1994, he was post-doctoral fellow, Oppenheimer Fellow, research staff and group leader at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA. Prof. Chen joined John Hopkins University in 2001, and was promoted to the Alonzo G. Decker Jr. Chair in Engineering and Science in 2005. From 2011 to 2015, Prof. Chen was Dean of Graduate School of Peking University and then Vice President for Research.

In January, 2015, he took office as the President of the Southern University of Science and Technology.