Chelsea Chen

Chelsea Chen leads a team of about 50 individuals of various academic backgrounds in research on brain-computer interfaces. This work focuses on systems that take signals from the brain and input them into computers or algorithms to help people recover their mental or motor abilities. She also examines demographic representation in the literature and the implications for how this technology might impact women or people of color. Her interest in these areas stems from her own experience with a chronic autoimmune condition that took roughly four years to diagnose, as well as her family's generational health issues, including her grandmother and great-grandmother who had Alzheimer's and her mother's inflammatory condition that predominantly affects women. Chen is driven to investigate why considerable bias persists in medicine and to critically appraise whether neuroscience studies are truly representative of the populations they serve. In her next research project, she aims to generalize this work to health in general by identifying markers that indicate how gender bias impacts research, study, education, and framing of conditions that predominantly affect women. She advises young women entering research and advocacy to start small in their community, create space if needed, and put themselves out there because opportunities can arise unexpectedly. Chen attributes her success to attention to detail and focus on the little things that can have a big impact, as well as being adaptable, staying curious, remaining a lifelong learner, and not letting anyone diminish the depth of one's passions or advocacy.