Li-Jen Chen received her Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Washington with a theoretical dissertation on electrostatic solitary waves in collisionless plasmas. She conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Iowa on the subjects of magnetospheric substorms, electrostatic solitary waves, and dispersive Alfven waves and their interaction with auroral electrons. She joined the Space Plasma Theory Group in December, 2005, and began to study magnetic reconnection. Her main interest in magnetic reconnection includes particle acceleration and structures of the diffusion region that affect the energy conversion rate and energy partition. In addition to reconnection, her current research interests include dynamics of electrostatic structures and how they influence plasma bulk properties at current layers, propagation of dispersive Alfven waves and field line resonances. She takes an approach that integrates theories, plasma simulations and laboratory experiments with space observations to address un-answered questions in her research areas of interest.