Dr. Jiquan Chen was born in Shanxi, northern China. He obtained his B.Sc. in Plant Ecology (1983) from Inner Mongolia University, M.S. in Forest Ecology (1986) from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Ph.D. in Ecosystem Analysis (1991) from the University of Washington. He has held faculty positions at Michigan Technological University, the University of Toledo, and Michigan State University. During 1999–2000, he was a Bullard Fellow at Harvard University.
Dr. Chen's research interests encompass landscape ecology and ecosystem science, with a particular focus on ecosystem dynamics and functions of streams, lakes, forests, grasslands, agricultural systems, urban landscapes, and regional to global systems. His current research is concentrated on the coupled influences of climate change, land use, human activities, and policy under the changing climate. He has conducted groundbreaking studies on edge effects in fragmented landscapes, biosphere-atmosphere exchanges of carbon and water in terrestrial ecosystems, and the dynamics of social-environmental systems across multiple scales. Dr. Chen has (co)authored over 600 scientific publications, including 530 journal articles, 58 book chapters, and 12 books. His work has been featured in prestigious journals such as Nature, Science, and PNAS. As of August 21, 2024, his work has been cited over 47,000 times, with an H-index of 105, according to Google Scholar (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=fv8umPcAAAAJ&hl=en).
Dr. Chen is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2010) and the Ecological Society of America (2014). He has received numerous awards, including Distinguished University Professor (2011) at the University of Toledo, the William J. Beal Outstanding Faculty Award (2020) at Michigan State University, the Fulbright Global Scholar Award in Germany and Australia (2021–2022), the Outstanding Service Award from the US-China Carbon Consortium (USCCC) (2024), and the Scientific Achievement Award from the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (2024). Dr. Chen serves on the editorial boards of over a dozen professional journals and has been the Editor-in-Chief of the book series “Ecosystem Science & Applications” (MSU & HEP) and “Landscape Studies” (Springer). Since 2016, he has served as Editor-in-Chief of Ecological Processes and has been the Chief Scientist for the USCCC since 2004. He was the founder and the 1st Chair of the Asian Section for Ecological Society of America. He also served as the chairperson for the Landscape Ecology Working Group of IUFRO during 2004–2012.
Lab Webpage: http://lees.geo.msu.edu; Email: jqchen@msu.edu