His main research interests include data science, multimedia big data, disaster information management, content-based image/video retrieval, and multimedia systems. Dr. Chen has authored and coauthored more than 390 research papers in journals, refereed conference/symposium/workshop proceedings, book chapters, and four books. Dr. Chen has been the PI/Co-PI/Co-I of many research grants from NSF, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), National Institute of Health (NIH), Department of Energy, US Department of Education, Air Force, Army Research Office, Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, Florida Department of Transportation, IBM, and Microsoft.