Academic Career and Research Areas

Jia Chen’s research focuses on climate change and urban air pollution. She develops novel optical sensors, methods, and atmospheric models to localize and quantify greenhouse gas emissions and to understand the metabolism of air pollutants in urban environments. She has established the worldwide first city sensor network based on the novel method of differential column measurements (MUCCnet). This pioneering work enables long-term assessment of urban greenhouse gas and pollutant emissions. Her research topics include sensor development and emission monitoring for greenhouse gases and air pollutants, atmospheric modelling, computational fluid dynamics, semantic kriging, ground and satellite based remote sensing, Fourier transform spectrometry, and tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy.

Jia Chen studied electrical engineering at KIT (Dipl.-Ing.) and was awarded a PhD (summa cum laude) from TUM. From 2011 to 2015, she was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University. Since 2015, Jia Chen has been TUM Professor of Environmental Sensing and Modeling. She is also an Associate at Harvard University. She is (co-)author of more than 180 publications and 12 patents. In 2020, she was named as Germany’s “Top 40 unter 40” by Capital Magazine and in 2021 she was selected to be a member of the Global Young Academy.

Awards

  • ERC Consolidator Grant (2022)
  • Arnold Sommerfeld-Award (2021)
  • VDE/ITG Award (2012)
  • Rohde & Schwarz Award (2011)
  • Kaiser Friedrich Forschungspreis (2009)

Dietrich F, Chen J, Voggenreiter B, Aigner P, Nachtigall N, and Reger B: "MUCCnet: Munich Urban Carbon Column network". Atmospheric Measurement Techniques. 2021; 14: 1111–1126. Featured in Physics Today.

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Chen J, Dietrich F, Maazallahi H, Forstmaier A, Winkler D, Hofmann MEG, Denier van der Gon H, and Röckmann T: "Methane emissions from the Munich Oktoberfest". Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. 2020; 20(6): 3683–3696. Highlight article in ACP. Research Highlight in Nature (Nature 580, p. 169). Featured by Science.

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Toja-Silva F, Chen J, Hachinger S, Hase F: "CFD simulation of CO2 dispersion from urban thermal power plant: Analysis of turbulent Schmidt number and comparison with Gaussian plume model and measurements". Journal of Wind Engineering & Industrial Aerodynamics. 2017; 169: 177–193.

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Chen J, Viatte C, Hedelius JK, Jones T, Franklin JE, Parker H, Gottlieb EW, Wennberg PO, Dubey MK, Wofsy SC: "Differential Column Measurements Using Compact Solar-Tracking Spectrometers". Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. 2016; 16: 8479 - 8498.

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Bhattacharjee S and Chen J: “Prediction of satellite‑based column CO2 concentration by combining emission inventory and LULC information”. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing. 2020; 58(12): 8285–8300.

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