Xu Chen

Biography

Xu Chen is a Teaching Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Illinois in 2018. Before returning to academia, he spent eight years in industry, working with IBM Systems Group and Apple Inc., where he gained extensive experience in electronic systems design and validation. His research and teaching bridge academia and industry, focusing on uncertainty quantification and scientific machine learning for electronic design automation, with particular emphasis on modeling, optimization, and heterogeneous integration in microelectronic packaging and circuits.

Prof. Chen serves as an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Components, Packaging, and Manufacturing Technology and as the General Chair of the 2026 IEEE Conference on Electrical Performance of Electronic Packaging and Systems (EPEPS). He is a faculty researcher with the Center for Advanced Electronics through Machine Learning (CAEML), where his work advances the integration of machine learning into electronic design automation and system modeling. Prof. Chen and his students have been recognized with the IEEE EDAPS Best Symposium Paper Award and the IEEE MTT-S NEMO Best Student Paper Award. He has authored or co-authored more than 30 peer-reviewed journal and conference papers, advised three M.S. students - now active in the hardware design industry - and currently mentors two Ph.D. students. In addition, he has served on multiple Ph.D. dissertation and qualifying examination committees. He is a Senior Member of IEEE and a Member of SIAM.

Prof. Chen teaches a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses across the electrical engineering curriculum, including engineering electromagnetics, probability, electronic circuits, microwave engineering, and analog signal processing. He is a dedicated and effective educator who has been recognized multiple times on the University of Illinois's List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students. Prof. Chen has mentored more than ten undergraduate researchers, many of whom have gone on to pursue graduate studies at top-tier institutions. Through his teaching and mentorship, he has fostered a strong culture of intellectual curiosity and practical problem-solving in both classroom and research settings.

Research Topics

• Computational science and engineering
• Data science and analytics
• Machine learning

Selected Articles in Journals

• H. Ma, D. Li, E. -P. Li, A. C. Cangellaris and X. Chen, "A Fast Optimization Method for High-Speed Link Inverse Design With SVR-AS Algorithm," in IEEE Transactions on Signal and Power Integrity, vol. 1, pp. 22-31, 2022, doi: 10.1109/TSIPI.2022.3173592.
• H. Ma, E. Li, A. C. Cangellaris and X. Chen, "Support Vector Regression-Based Active Subspace (SVR-AS) Modeling of High-Speed Links for Fast and Accurate Sensitivity Analysis," in IEEE Access, vol. 8, pp. 74339-74348, 2020.

Articles in Conference Proceedings

• E. Thieme, B. Paskaleva, X. Chen, and P. Bochev. "A Hammerstein Approach for Compact Model of Non-linear Circuits with Arbitrary Terminations," 2025 IEEE 29th Workshop on Signal and Power Integrity (SPI), Gaeta, Italy, 2025.
• A. Page and X. Chen, "Machine-Learning-Based Constrained Optimization of a Test Coupon Launch Using Inverse Modeling," 2023 IEEE 32nd Conference on Electrical Performance of Electronic Packaging and Systems (EPEPS), Milpitas, CA, USA, 2023, pp. 1-3, doi: 10.1109/EPEPS58208.2023.10314941.
• A. Page, M. Cocchini, Z. Chen and X. Chen, "Realistic Stripline Corner Modeling Using Surrogate Model and Topographic Fitting," 2022 IEEE 31st Conference on Electrical Performance of Electronic Packaging and Systems (EPEPS), San Jose, CA, USA, 2022, pp. 1-3, doi: 10.1109/EPEPS53828.2022.9947141.
• H. Ma et al., "Channel Inverse Design Using Tandem Neural Network," 2022 IEEE 26th Workshop on Signal and Power Integrity (SPI), Siegen, Germany, 2022, pp. 1-3, doi: 10.1109/SPI54345.2022.9874935.
• X. -J. Shangguan, H. Ma, A.C. Cangellaris and X. Chen, "Effect of Sampling Method on the Regression Accuracy for a High-Speed Link Problem," 2021 IEEE 30th Conference on Electrical Performance of Electronic Packaging and Systems (EPEPS), 2021, pp. 1-3.
• Der-Han Huang, A.C. Cangellaris and X. Chen, “Stochastic-Galerkin Finite-Difference Time-Domain for Waves in Random Media,” 2020 IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society International Conference on Numerical Electromagnetics and Multiphysics Modeling and Optimization (MTT-S NEMO), Hangzhou, China, 2020. (Best Student Paper)

Journal Editorships

• Associate Editor, IEEE Transactions on Components, Packaging, and Manufacturing Technologies.

Conferences Organized or Chaired

• General Chair, IEEE 35th Conference on Electrical Performance of Electronic Packaging and Systems (EPEPS 2026), Fort Worth, TX.
• Technical Program Committee, IEEE Conference on Electrical Design of Advanced Packaging and Systems
• Co-Chair, IEEE 34th Conference on Electrical Performance of Electronic Packaging and Systems (EPEPS 2025), Milpitas, CA.
• Organizing Committee, IEEE Conference on Electrical Design of Advanced Packaging and Systems 2020.

Other Scholarly Activities

• Member, IEEE Electronic Packaging Society Technical Committee on Electrical Design Modeling and Simulation.

Professional Societies

• Member, SIAM
• Senior Member, IEEE

Research Honors

• IEEE MTT-S NEMO Best Student Paper (2020)
• IEEE EDAPS Best Symposium Paper (2017)