Chen-Nee Chuah

Faculty Spotlight: Chen-Nee Chuah

This spotlight is part of our 2022 International Women's Day feature.

Describe your personal and professional background and current role in the College of Engineering.

Born and raised in Malaysia, I am a first-generation high school/college/graduate school graduate and first-generation faculty. I received my B.S. in electrical engineering from Rutgers University and my M.S. and Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from UC Berkeley.

I am a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and an Association for Computing Machinery Distinguished Scientist. I received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2003 for my research on robust, stable, and secure routing. I received the UC Davis College of Engineering Outstanding Junior Faculty Award in 2004. I was also named a UC Davis Chancellor's Fellow (2008-13) and was honored with the ADVANCE Scholar award (2020). In 2020, I was appointed as the College of Engineering Child Family Professor in Engineering. In 2021, I earned the Outstanding Instructor Award from the IEEE UC Davis branch.

What led you to the engineering field?

I love math and science subjects, and engineering is an excellent combination of both. I was also motivated by two older siblings who went into electrical engineering.

Highlight your current research. What do you love about it, why are you excited and how do you stay motivated?

My research is in interdisciplinary efforts applying advanced technologies (e.g., internet-of-things, smartphones, and edge devices), data science and machine learning techniques to advance human health (e.g., through personalized critical care, AI-assisted disease diagnosis and prognosis, pathology image analysis, behavior screening). I am excited to learn new things from my collaborators in other disciplines, and it’s rewarding to see that our research efforts lead to real, societal impact.

The 2022 International Women’s Day theme is #BreakTheBias. How do you support gender equity and #BreakTheBias in the engineering field?

I have served as program director, teaching director, and research director for multiple Department of Education Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need grants that aim at recruiting and retaining Ph.D. students from under-represented groups (female, social-economically disadvantaged, and ethnic/racial) into the Electrical & Computer Engineering Graduate Program. In total, this has benefited about 52 Ph.D. female and minority graduate students by removing financial obstacles for their graduate studies. I have served on the Mentorship & Networking Initiative Committee for the NSF-funded ADVANCE program at UC Davis that aims at providing guidance and networking opportunities for research and career success of women and minority faculty members in STEM. I mentored five junior STEM faculty members through ADVANCE in their early professional integration and development. I am also co-mentoring a junior female faculty member (KL2 Scholar) in the School of Medicine, providing technical guidance in applying machine learning techniques to detect heart defects in newborn babies and assisting her in grant writing. At the professional level, I served on diversity and career panels at conferences and industry Women in Tech summit to share my experience and address concerns/questions from junior researchers/engineers.

Learn more about Chen-Nee Chuah

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