Jackie Chen has contributed broadly to research in direct numerical simulations (DNS) of turbulent combustion focusing on fundamental turbulence-chemistry interactions relevant to engines. She is also developing a mesoscopic and continuum simulation framework to understand how nonequilibrium chemical processes affect the behavior of complex systems. The DNS benchmark simulations provide fundamental insight into combustion processes and are used by the combustion modeling community to develop and validate turbulent combustion models for engineering CFD simulations. 

She was the Director of the Exascale Combustion Codesign Center, ExaCT, and is the PI of the Exascale Computing Project on Transforming Combustion Science and Technology with Exascale Simulation. She received the DOE INCITE Award in 2005, 2007, 2008-2020, the Asian American Engineer of the Year Award in 2009, the Sandia OE Adams Award in 2012, the Combustion Institute Bernard Lewis Gold Medal Award in 2018, the Society of Women Engineers Achievement Award in 2018 and the Department of Energy Office of Science Distinguished Fellows Award in 2020. She is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, Fellow of the American Physical Society and of the Combustion Institute, and Associate Fellow of the AIAA. She is a member of the DOE Advanced Scientific Computing Research Advisory Committee (ASCAC) and Subcommittees on Exascale Computing, Synergies of Big Data and Exascale, and ASCR@40 Report. She was a past member of the Board of Directors of the Combustion Institute and serves on numerous editorial boards of combustion and fluids journals.