August 11, 2008 — Yong Chen of the Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering has won the Best Paper Award at the 28th annual Computers and Information in Engineering (CIE) Conference, sponsored by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Yong Chen

The award, given annually to recognize scholarship among design engineers in the use of computers, computing methods, software and information management in engineering, was presented to Chen and co-author Charlie Wang of the Chinese University of Hong Kong for their paper, "Layer depth-normal images for complex geometries -- Part I:  Accurate modeling and adaptive sampling."

“Walking away from a national event like this with a best paper award is a rare and impressive achievement, made all the more exceptional by the fact that assistant professor Chen is still relatively junior in his field,” said James E. Moore II, Epstein Department chair.  “Yong's USC colleagues are impressed but not surprised.”

Chen, who joined USC in 2006, teaches manufacturing processes, computer-aided manufacturing and geometric modeling and computation for digital fabrication.  

A graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology with a doctorate in mechanical engineering, Chen previously spent five years as a senior research and development engineer for 3D Systems in Valencia, CA.