Research Interests:

Process innovations, bio-inspired chemical engineering, soft-elastic devices, food processing, drying, falling film evaporation, frying, powder agglomeration, lumping and caking, powder functionality, heat exchanger fouling and cleaning, new coating for anti-fouling purposes, heat and mass transfer, evaporation processes, membrane operations, immobilised enzyme processes, scale-up design and commissioning, computer simulation of industrial processes, innovative designs to reduce cost and environmental impact to resolve large scale practical difficulties.

Education:

PhD (Chemical and Process Engineering), University of Canterbury, NZ (1991)
BE (Engineering Thermophysics), Tsinghua University, Beijing, China (1987)

MSc (Applied Mathematics), University of New South Wales, Australia (2014)

Academic/Professional experience:
Professor Xiao Dong Chen, after working for Fonterra New Zealand for 2.5 years on food particle technology, he took up a lectureship at The University of Auckland, New Zealand. He was made a Personal Chair of Chemical Engineering in 2001 at The University of Auckland. In 2006, he was appointed to the Chair of Biotechnology and Professor of Chemical Engineering at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. He has worked with industries in New Zealand, Australia, and has now also worked in projects with several large companies in China.

By the end of 2019, he has published over 600 refereed journal articles and more than 230 conference papers, 4 books (the most recent one being Modelling Drying Processes – A Reaction Engineering Approach published by Cambridge University Press, 2013), 20+ book chapters, and over 50+ reports on industrial consulting projects. He has received many awards of distinction including Shedden Uhde (Chemeca) Medal (1999), ER Cooper Medal (2002), John Hood Fellow (2005), Nanqiang Scholar (2004), Inaugural Fonterra (Chemeca) Award (2006), ADC Award of Excellence in Drying Research (2007), AFISA Award for Excellence in Drying R & D (2008), Monash Engineering Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research (2009), Monash Vice Chancellor Special Commendation Award for Best PhD Supervisor (2010), and two Highest Level Talent Program recipients (Fujian and Jiangsu Province respectively, China). In August 2014, he was presented with the IDS’s Founder Award provided by Taylor and Francis in Lyon, France. He was given the Life-time Achievement Award at the 12^thInternational Congress of Engineering and Food held in Quebec in 2015. He was also the Next Power Chair Professor at the National Tsinghua University (Taiwan) in 2017 and was the historical first recipient of Doctor Honoris Causa awarded by Agrocampus Quest (France). He was also voted the Most Liked Lecturer of the Year 2017 at Soochow University.

He was the Deputy Head of Chemical Engineering and the Associate Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at Monash (2007-2009). From early 2010 to the end of 2012, he held a 1000-Talent National Chair Professor of Chemical Engineering and the Headship of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering at Xiamen University.

Professor Xiao Dong Chen is an Elected Fellow of Royal Society of New Zealand since 2001 (36 years old), an Elected Fellow of Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering since 2007 (42 years old) and is a Fellow of IChemE (UK) from 2001.

In January 2013, he has begun his role as the University Distinguished Professor and the Founding Head of School of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at Soochow University.