Chen Pin-Shan (Chinese: 陳品山; born January 3, 1947), also known as Peter Chen, is a Taiwanese-American computer scientist and applied mathematician. He worked as a scientist and teacher at Carnegie Mellon University and held the title of Distinguished Chair Professor Emeritus at Louisiana State University. He is famous for creating the entity–relationship model in 1976.

Early life and education

Chen was born in Taichung, Taiwan. After finishing high school at Taichung Municipal First Senior High School, he studied electrical engineering at National Taiwan University. He earned a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree in 1968. Inspired by An Wang, Chen went to the United States to study for his doctorate at Harvard University. At Harvard, he received a Master of Arts (M.A.) and a Ph.D. in computer science and applied mathematics in 1973. His professors included Ugo Gagliardi, Jeffrey P. Buzen, and George H. Mealy. The title of his doctoral dissertation was "Optimal File Allocation."

Career

After graduating from Harvard, Chen worked for one year at Honeywell and spent a summer at Digital Equipment Corporation.

From 1974 to 1978, Chen was an assistant professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management. From 1978 to 1983, he was an associate professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA Management School). From 1983 to 2011, Chen held the position of M. J. Foster Distinguished Chair Professor of Computer Science at Louisiana State University. During this time, he also taught as an adjunct professor in the university’s Business School and Medical School (Shreveport). During this period, he visited Harvard as a professor from 1989 to 1990 and taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology three times: in the EECS Department from 1986 to 1987, at the Sloan School from 1990 to 1991, and at the Division of Engineering Systems from 2006 to 2007. From 2010 to 2020, Chen worked as a Distinguished Career Scientist and faculty member at Carnegie Mellon University in the United States.

In addition to teaching worldwide, Chen held honorary professor positions outside the United States. In 1984, with support from the United Nations, he taught a one-month course on databases at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, and was named an Honorary Professor there. Later, he attended the First International Conference on Computers and Applications in Beijing as part of the IEEE delegation. From 2008 to 2014, he was an Honorary Chair Professor at the Institute of Service Science at National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan. Since 2016, he has been an Honorary Chair Professor in the Department of Bioengineering and Bioinformatics at Asia University in Taiwan.

Chen has also advised government agencies and companies. He was a member of the advisory board for the Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate of the National Science Foundation from 2004 to 2006 and on the United States Air Force Scientific Advisory Board from 2005 to 2009.

Awards and honors

Chen's original paper is considered one of the most important papers in the computer software field, according to a survey of over 1,000 computer science professors included in a book titled "Great Papers in Computer Science." His work is also mentioned in the book Software Challenges, published by Time-Life Books in 1993, as part of a series on "Understanding Computers." A book titled Software Pioneers recognizes Chen as one of the early leaders in the field. He is listed in Who's Who in America and Who's Who in the World.

Chen has received many honors in the field of Information Technology. In 1990, he was awarded the Data Resource Management Technology Award by the Data Administration Management Association (DAMA International) in New York City. He was chosen as a Fellow by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), IEEE, and ER. In 2000, he received the Achievement Award in Information Management from DAMA International and was inducted into the Data Management Hall of Fame. In 2001, he was given the Stevens Award in Software Method Innovation. In 2003, he received the IEEE Harry H. Goode Memorial Award at an IEEE-CS Board of Governors meeting in San Diego. He also received the ACM – AAAI Allen Newell Award at the ACM Banquet in San Diego in June 2003 and at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) in Acapulco in August 2003. In 2004, he was awarded the Pan Wen-Yuan Outstanding Research Award. In June 2011, he received the Transformative Achievement Medal in Jeju Island, Korea, from the Software Engineering Society and the Society for Design and Process Science. In 2021, he was honored with the Leadership Award by the IEEE Technical Committee of Service Computing (TCSVC).

Chen's innovative work helped start a new area of study and practice called "Conceptual Modeling," based on the conceptual model (computer science) or entity–relationship model. In 1979, he created an annual international meeting for professionals, called the International Conference on Conceptual Modeling, which has been held in various countries. He also founded the Data & Knowledge Engineering journal to share scholarly research findings.

Peter P. Chen Award

The "Peter P. Chen Award" was created in 2008 to recognize outstanding researchers and educators who have made important contributions to the field of conceptual modeling. Each year, the award is given to individuals who have shown excellence in this area. The recipients of the Peter P. Chen Award are:

• 2008: Bernhard Thalheim, Professor, University of Kiel, Germany
• 2009: David W. Embley, Professor, Brigham Young University (BYU), U.S.A.
• 2010: John Mylopoulos, Professor, University of Toronto, Canada, and University of Trento, Italy
• 2011: Tok Wang Ling, Professor, National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore
• 2012: Stefano Spaccapietra, Honorary Professor, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Switzerland
• 2013: Carlo Batini, Professor, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy
• 2014: Antonio L. Furtado, professor, PUC-Rio, Brazil
• 2015: Il-Yeol Song, Professor, Drexel University, U.S.A.
• 2016: Óscar Pastor, Professor, Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain
• 2017: Yair Wand, CANFOR Professor in MIS, University of British Columbia, CANADA
• 2018: Veda C. Storey, Tull Professor of Computer Information Systems, Georgia State University, Atlanta, U.S.A.
• 2019: Eric Yu, Professor, University of Toronto, Canada
• 2020: Matthias Jarke, Professor, RWTH Aachen University, Germany and Chairman, Fraunhofer ICT Group
• 2021: Sudha Ram, Anheuser-Busch Professor of MIS, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, University of Arizona, U.S.A.
• 2022: Maurizio Lenzerini, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
• 2023: Nicola Guarino, The head of the Laboratory for Applied Ontology (LOA), part of the Italian National Research Council (CNR) in Trento, Italy
• 2024: Heinrich C. Mayr, Professor (Emeritus), Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, Austria
• 2025: Ron Weber, Emeritus Professor, University of Queensland, Australia

Peter Chen Big Data Young Researcher Award

In 2015, the "Peter Chen Big Data Young Researcher Award" was created by the Service Society and the steering committee of eight conferences held together by IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). The award honors a young researcher who shows great promise in big data modeling and analysis. It is given each year during the IEEE Big Data Congress and related conferences, starting in 2015. The winners of the award are:

• 2015: Yi Chen, associate professor, New Jersey Institute of Technology, U.S.A.
• 2016: Wei Tan, Research Staff Member, IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY, USA.
• 2017: Ilkay Altintas, Chief Data Science Officer, San Diego Supercomputer Center, University of California, San Diego, USA.

Work

The entity–relationship model is the foundation for many systems analysis and design methods, computer-aided software engineering (CASE) tools, and repository systems. This model is used in IBM's Repository Manager/MVS and DEC's CDD/Plus.

Chen's original paper is widely recognized as the main reference for entity–relationship modeling. However, Schmid and Swenson had introduced a similar idea a year earlier, as noted in the 1975 ACM SIGMOD Proceedings. Chen helped formalize and popularize the use of entity–relationship concepts in software and information system design. Before his work, these ideas were mostly used informally by professionals. Chen first shared his model at the First Very Large Database Conference in September 1975, the same year A. P. G. Brown published a similar paper. His key contributions include creating a theory with clear rules for defining and working with data, developing methods to translate the model into databases like the Relational Database, and making the model widely known in academic settings.

The ER model became the standard for organizing information in the ANSI Information Resource Directory System (IRDS). Surveys of Fortune 500 companies have ranked the ER approach as the top method for designing databases and one of the top methods for system development.

Chen's work is a key part of software engineering, especially in CASE tools. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, IBM's AD/Cycle framework and DB2 repository (RM/MVS) used the ER model. Other systems, like Digital's CDD+, also relied on it. Chen's research and teaching influenced the CASE industry. His model has shaped major CASE tools, including ERWIN, Designer/2000, PowerDesigner, and Microsoft Visio, as well as the IDEF1X standard. The ER model is also the basis for Microsoft's ADO.NET Entity Framework.

The concept behind the World Wide Web, which makes it popular, is similar to the main idea in the ER model. Chen studied this connection as an expert in XML working groups of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

The ER model also influences modern methods like Object-oriented analysis and design, as well as the Semantic Web. The UML modeling language, used in software design, has roots in the ER model.

In his early career, Chen worked on improving computer system performance. He led a conference on computer performance and created a model for a major computer company. His research was used in commercial computer systems to improve performance and capacity.

Chen's Harvard Ph.D. thesis studied how to optimize memory/storage systems for cost and performance. He also helped program firmware for an IBM mainframe computer. His 1980s article on "CD-ROM" explained how CD-ROMs worked when they became popular. He co-wrote a storage technology article for a computer encyclopedia published by McGraw-Hill.

In recent years, Chen led research teams to develop methods for identifying terrorists and cyber threats. At Carnegie Mellon University, he works with the CERT Coordination Center and Software Engineering Institute (SEI).

Chen is active in research and teaching about Big Data and new technologies. He has spoken at IEEE conferences on Big Data and led events like the IEEE BigData Congresses and the IEEE Blockchain Panel. He also chaired the IEEE Service Congress in Milan, Italy. In 2002, he received the ACM-AAAAI Allen Newell Award, a top honor given jointly by computer and artificial intelligence societies.

Publications

Peter P. Chen has written many books, papers, and articles.

• 2007. Active Conceptual Modeling of Learning: Next Generation Learning-Base System Development. Edited by Leah Y. Wong. Published by Springer.
• 1999. Advances in Conceptual Modeling: ER'99 Workshops on Evolution and Change in Data Management, Reverse Engineering in Information Systems, and the World… (Lecture Notes in Computer Science). Edited by David W. Embley, Jacques Kouloumdjian, Stephen W. Liddle, and John F. Roddick. Published by Springer Verlag.
• 1999. Conceptual Modeling: Current Issues and Future Directions (Lecture Notes in Computer Science). Edited by Jacky Akoka, Hannu Kangassalo, and Bernhard Thalheim.
• 1985. Data & Knowledge Engineering, Volume 1, Number 1, 1985.
• 1981. Entity–Relationship Approach to Information Modeling and Analysis.
• 1980. Entity–Relationship Approach to Systems Analysis and Design. Published by North-Holland.

• 1976 (March). Chen, Peter Pin-Shan (1976). "The Entity–Relationship Model – Toward A Unified View of Data". Published in ACM Transactions on Database Systems, Volume 1, Issue 1, pages 9–36. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.523.6679. DOI: 10.1145/320434.320440. S2CID 52801746. ISSN 0362-5915.
• 2002. "Entity–Relationship Modeling: Historical Events, Future Trends, and Lessons Learned". Published in Software Pioneers: Contributions to Software Engineering, edited by M. Broy and E. Denert. Published by Springer-Verlag. Part of Lecture Notes in Computer Sciences, June 2002, pages 100–114.