Arnold Chen (’88) has dedicated his career to engineering and start-up entrepreneurship. Chen’s academic path began at Purdue University where he earned a BS in Electrical Engineering (1991) followed by a MS and PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois (1996).
Chen’s first job in industry was as a research engineer for the Rockwell Corporation in Los Angeles (1996-1998). The next 17 years were spent with several start-up companies in the Bay Area. In 1998, he was the 7th employee at the startup company, Genoa, which grew from 7 employees to over 100 in just 3 years. After the dot.com market crash, Chen moved to another, much larger startup company, Infinera, where he started as a manufacturing semiconductor processing engineer and over a period of eight years (2003-2011), ended up managing the entire semiconductor fab of over 50 employees. His last startup was Aurrion, where he was the Vice-President of Operations from 2011-2015.
In 2015 Chen’s family moved back to West Lafayette where Chen worked at the Purdue Center for Entrepreneurship, first coaching startups, then eventually becoming the Managing Director for the Center in 2017. In 2023, he moved to the Electrical and Computer Engineering department where he teaches master’s degree students enrolled in the Ideas to Innovation Project Track. Since returning to West Lafayette, Chen has become involved with the community, spending several years as a member of the Boilermaker Aquatics Youth Swimming organization as a Board member and in 2023 was appointed to the West Lafayette Redevelopment Commission.
Chen was in a wide variety of activities at West Lafayette High School. He was a 3-sport letter winner in tennis, swimming, and track and field. He also belonged to the Chess Club, the Debate Team, and National Honor Society. Music played an important role in his high school years where he participated in the High School Orchestra (concert master his senior year), the All-State Orchestra, the Spring Musical Pit Orchestra, and the State Solo and Ensemble Contests.
Chen cites Mr. Meister (U.S. History) and Miss Kern (orchestra) as his favorite teachers. He has fond memories of hanging out at the Chauncey Village on Friday nights, eating at Garcia’s, Taco Bell or getting a blizzard at DQ, or, after swim practice, it was pizza at Arni’s.
Chen writes, “West Lafayette allows students to thrive in academics, athletics and arts. The school is small enough where you can join almost any sport and be a part of the team…. I have a fond memory of my senior year, during the Spring Musical. There was one week during which we had nightly dress rehearsals for the musical. I was on the track team and in the pit orchestra for the musical. After school I would attend track practice, grab a quick dinner and shower, then head back to school for three hours of dress rehearsals; managing to get my homework done at the same time.”