Prof. Chen is a climatologist. He serves as the August Röhss Chair of the Department of Earth Sciences of University of Gothenburg. He is a fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and a foreign academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters.

Prof. Chen's research interests include Earth System Science and global environmental change, climate dynamics and modeling, atmospheric circulation and water balance in the Third Pole Region, Recent and future regional climate changes and their impacts in Eurasia. He made the Reuters Hot List of the top 1,000 climate scientists in 2021 and was one of the world’s most cited researchers in 2023.