Dr. Shu-Ching Chen

Dr. Chen is the inaugural Executive Director of Data Science and Analytics Innovation Center (dSAIC). dSAIC is a multi-university center and based at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC). Dr. Chen reports directly to UMKC Chancellor. He provides the expertise and leadership to ensure the Center’s overarching aspiration to become Missouri’s hub for innovative research and expertise in data science, analytics, data protection (cybersecurity), artificial intelligence, and machine learning solving critical societal problems, being a state-of-the-art resource for industry and the UM universities, producing a skilled workforce to meet growing industry demands and spurring economic development becomes a reality. Prior to UMKC, Dr. Chen was a Professor in the Knight Foundation School of Computing and Information Sciences (KFSCIS), College of Engineering and Computing, Florida International University (FIU), Miami. FIU is a Minority Serving Institution (MSI). He was the Director of Distributed Multimedia Information Systems Laboratory (DMIS) and Co-Director of the Integrated Computer Augmented Virtual Environment (I-CAVE). His main research interests include data science, AI, Machine Learning, AR/VR, Spatial Computing, multimedia big data, disaster information management, content-based image/video retrieval, and multimedia systems. He developed innovative and fundamentally new methodologies for a wide range of multimedia data management problems for efficient data management/searching/retrieval. He also applies these methods to a few applications related to disaster information management. Dr. Chen has authored and coauthored more than 370 research papers in journals, refereed conference proceedings, book chapters, and four books. Dr. Chen has been the PI/Co-PI of many research grants from NSF, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), National Institute of Health (NIH), Department of Energy (DOE), Army Research Office (ARO), Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, Florida Department of Transportation, IBM, and Microsoft. 

He has taught eight different courses that consist of two undergraduate and six graduate courses. These eight courses are Introduction to Computing (undergraduate), Database Management (undergraduate), Principles of Database Management Systems (graduate), Distributed Computing (graduate), Expert Systems (graduate), Advanced Topics in Concurrent and Distributed Systems (graduate), Computer Systems Fundamentals (graduate), and Advanced Topics in Information Processing (graduate). Dr. Chen developed three new courses, namely Principles of Database Management Systems (graduate), Principles of Data Mining (graduate), and Computer Systems Fundamentals (graduate) courses, and he revised the course Advanced Database Management (graduate) at KFSCIS. These courses are taken by Ph.D. students, Master students (Master of Science in Computer Science and Master of Science in Information Technology), and undergraduate students. Dr. Chen has also supervised graduate and undergraduate independent study courses, which provide guidance to the students to emerging state-of-the-art topics. Dr. Chen is one of the first two faculty members at SCIS who began to teach FEEDS/Online courses at Graduate and Undergraduate courses. These FEEDS/Online courses offer the opportunity for those students/professionals who work in the information technology related fields to obtain a higher-level degree in information technology.  

The objectives of Dr. Chen’s teaching are to teach/train the students with theoretical background, practical background, communication skills, and team experience necessary for entering graduate and professional degree programs as well as careers in the industry. To achieve these objectives, he has always prepared the contents of his courses to reflect the most current technology and designed the courses to also involve the students in conducting research-oriented projects with oral presentations (if possible) and participating in group projects.  

Shu-Ching was the SCIS Graduate Program Director from 2011 to 2014 who has also been an active researcher; with a Ph.D. program, three different M.S. programs, and roughly 200 active graduate students, serving as Graduate Program Director is a significant service on the behalf of the School at the expense of one’s own research career.  

Dr. Chen is very active in supervising and mentoring graduate/undergraduate students and has an excellent track record on supervising minority and women students. He also worked with more than 100 undergraduate and MS minority students on research projects.  Eleven out of the 18 MS students with thesis are female. He has guided his graduate/undergraduate students to work on large-scale projects to develop their research capability, programming skill, capability, and leadership training to work with multidisciplinary research areas to build up their professional networks. He also serves as a role model providing moral, emotional, and intellectual support for his students. All of these can be evidenced by the Inaugural Florida International University Excellence in Graduate Mentorship Award that he received in 2006.  

Dr. Chen supervised many minority and female students. His graduate/undergraduate students received many awards from FIU/College/SCIS and National. His Ph.D. students all got very good job offers after they graduated. His two Ph.D. students, Dr. Chengcui Zhang and Dr. Min Chen, are tenured full and Associate Professors at University of Alabama at Birmingham and University of Washington Bothell, respectively. Other students joined companies including Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, eBay, Lowe’s, etc. In addition, Fausto Fleites (Hispanic Ph.D. student), Jairo Pava (Hispanic undergraduate student), and Jesse Domack received the “Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce's Technology Leaders Award” in the category "Top Technology Student" in 2010, 2011, and 2013, respectively. They only gave one award each year. Both Jairo Pava and Jesse Domack also received CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Awards - Honorable Mention in the Computing Research. Fausto (Hispanic Ph.D. graduated 2014) is now the Director, Lead Data Scientist & Engineering at ScottsMiracleGro, is the world's largest marketer of branded consumer products for lawn and garden care, with products for professional horticulture as well. Maria (Hispanic Female Ph.D. graduated 2022) is the Data Scientist at Florida Power & Light (FPL) NextEra Energy Resources.  

Dr. Chen’s work in disaster information management is widely known and cited. His team works with the stakeholders from the Miami-Dade County Office of Emergency Management (MDEM), which is the main participant coordinating the information and resources during emergencies. The in-house developed tools such as the Disaster Response Tracker (DRT) are utilized extensively when the Miami-Dade County Emergency Operations Center (EOC) is activated. His 3D Hurricane Storm Surge Animation System used by NOAA's Tampa National Weather Service Office, including a press conference and a Hurricane Kickoff Meeting for Critical Employees of Transportation Security Administration, Florida Governor's Hurricane Conference, and a briefing to the City of Tampa's mayor. His other work on Florida Public Hurricane Loss Model (FPHLM) has major impact to the State of Florida as its predictions directly influence the home insurance rates paid by Floridians every month. Florida ranks number one in total insured property value exposed to hurricane wind. Out of Florida's $3.6 trillion in insured properties, about $2 trillion are residential, and all are exposed to hurricane risk. FPHLM is the first public catastrophe model in the world that can assess hurricane risk and predict annual expected insured residential losses. This model has been officially used by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR) more than 3,450 times and over 260 times by firms in the insurance industry. 

Dr. Chen was named a 2011 recipient of the ACM Distinguished Scientist Award. He received the best paper awards from 2006 IEEE International Symposium on Multimedia and 2016 IEEE International Conference on Information Reuse and Integration. He also received the best student paper award from 2022 IEEE International Conference on Multimedia Information Processing and Retrieval. He received the 2019 Service Award from IEEE Computer Society’s Technical Committee on Multimedia Computing. He was awarded the IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC) Society's Outstanding Contribution Award in 2005 and was the co-recipient of the IEEE Most Active SMC Technical Committee Award in 2006. He was also awarded the Inaugural Excellence in Graduate Mentorship Award from FIU in 2006, the University Outstanding Faculty Research Award from FIU in 2004, the Excellence in Mentorship Award from SCIS in 2010, the Outstanding Faculty Service Award from SCIS in 2004 and 2014, the Outstanding Faculty Research Award from SCIS in 2002 and 2012, and SCIS Director’s Special Recognition Award in 2016. He is a fellow of IEEE, AAAS, AAIA, and SIRI. 

He has been a General Chair and Program Chair for more than 60 conferences, symposiums, and workshops. He is the Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Multimedia. Under his leadership, IEEE MultiMedia had the highest impact factor 5.633 (in 2021) in the IEEE MultiMedia history and has the highest impact factor among all the 12 IEEE Computer Society magazines in 2020 and 2021. He is also the founding Editor-in-Chief of International Journal of Multimedia Data Engineering and Management. He served as the Chair of IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Multimedia Computing. He is Co-Chair of IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society's Technical Committee on Knowledge Acquisition in Intelligent Systems. Dr. Chen has also been a guest editor for more than ten journal special issues. He was a member of three steering committees (including IEEE Transactions on Multimedia) and several panels for conferences and NSF.  He also serves/served as a member of technical program committee for more than 400 professional meetings.