Prof. Zhen Chen is a C.W. LaPierre Professor in the College of Engineering at the University of Missouri (MU). His research area is in Computation Mechanics with a recent focus on multiscale modeling and simulation of the multi-physical phenomena involved in structural failure subjected to extreme loading conditions.Before joining MU in 1995, Dr. Chen was a design engineer in Shanghai Medical Electronics Factory, a professional staff member in the Applied Mechanics Division at New Mexico Engineering Research Institute as well as in the Department for the Waste Isolation Pilot Project/Performance Analysis Code Development at Sandia National Laboratories. Dr. Chen has more than 200 publications based on funded research projects. He serves on Advisory Editorial Board of the International Journal for Multiscale Computational Engineering and Board of Editors of CMES: Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, respectively. Among his honors and awards are the Fellow of ASME, the Yangtze Visiting Chair Professor appointed by the Ministry of Education in China, the Faculty Research Award in the College of Engineering at MU, the Outstanding Youth Award (Oversea) from the Natural Science Foundation of China, and the NSF-CAREER Award. He received his Ph.D. degree in solid and computational mechanics from the University of New Mexico in 1989.