Peter Chen

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Dr. Peter Pin-Shan Chen (Chinese: 陳品山) is the originator of the Entity-Relationship Model (ER Model). A graduate of National Taiwan University (B.S. in electrical engineering, 1968) and Harvard University (Ph.D. in computer science/applied mathematics, 1973), Dr. Peter Chen has held the position of M. J. Foster Distinguished Chair Professor of Computer Science at Louisiana State University since 1983.

The ER model serves as the foundation of many systems analysis and design methodologies, computer-aided software engineering (CASE) tools, and repository systems. The ER Model is the basis for IBM's Repository Manager/MVS and DEC's CDD/Plus. The terms "Entity-Relationship Model (ER Model)," "Entity-Relationship Diagram (ER Diagram)," and "Peter Chen" have become commonly used in online dictionaries, books, articles, web pages, course syllabi, and commercial product brochures.

Dr. Peter Chen's original paper^[1] is one of the most cited papers in the computer software field.^[2] Recently, according to a survey of 1,000 computer science college professors, Dr. Chen was honored by the selection of his original ER model paper as one of the 38 most influential papers in Computer Science.^[3] In 1998, he was inducted as a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery.

Today it is very likely to find at least one chapter on the ER Model when a person randomly picks up a textbook on information system design or databases. It is also very likely to attend a class on Information Management and see that the ER Model is being taught there. For example, at Louisiana State University the ER Model is being taught at three different colleges: the Computer Science Department in the College of Basic Sciences, the Information Systems and Decision Sciences Department in the College of Business, and the Industrial Engineering and Manufacturing Systems Department in the College of Engineering. In other universities, the ER Model is also taught in a variety of colleges and departments. For example, at University of California, Berkeley the ER Model is being taught in two or three courses at the School of Information Management. The ER Model is also being taught in the Computational biology/Bioinformatics programs at the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel, the University of Virginia, and Hong Kong University. There are other college courses covering the ER Model as well.

Based on one particular citation database, Chen's paper is the 35th most cited article in Computer Science. It is the 4th most downloaded paper from the ACM Digital Library in January 2005 even though the paper was published 30 years ago.

The ER Model was adopted as the meta model ANSI Standard in Information Resource Directory System (IRDS), and the ER approach has been ranked at the top methodology for database design and one of the top methodologies in systems development by several surveys of Fortune 500 companies.

Professor Chen's work is cited heavily in a book published in 1993 for the general public called Software Challenges published by Time-Life Books as a part of the series on "Understanding Computers."

Dr. Chen’s work is a cornerstone of software engineering, in particular Computer-Aided Software Engineering (CASE). In the late 80’s and early 90’s, IBM’s Application Development Cycle (AD/Cycle) framework and DB2 repository (RM/MVS) were based on the ER model. Other vendors’ repository systems such as Digital’s CDD+ were also based on the ER model. Dr. Chen has had a significant impact on the CASE industry through his research and his lecturing around the world on structured system development methodologies. The ER model has influenced most of the major CASE tools, including Computer Associates’ ERWIN, Oracle Corporation’s Designer/2000, and Sybase’s PowerDesigner (and even a general drawing tool like Microsoft Visio), as well as the IDEF1X standard.

The hypertext concept, which makes the World Wide Web extremely popular, is very similar to the main concept in the ER model. Dr. Chen is currently investigating this linkage as an invited expert of several XML working groups of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

The ER model also serves as the foundation of some of the recent work on Object-oriented analysis and design methodologies and Semantic Web. The UML modeling language has its roots in the ER model.

Dr. Chen is the recipient of many prestigious awards in several fields of Information Technology. He received the Data Resource Management Technology Award from the Data Administration Management Association in New York City in 1990. He won the Achievement Award in Information Management in 2000 from DAMA International. He was an inductee into the Data Management Hall of Fame in 2000. He received the Stevens Award in Software Method Innovation in 2001. The award was presented at the IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance in Florence, Italy on November 8, 2001. In 2003, Dr. Chen received the IEEE Harry Goode Award at the IEEE-CS Board of Governors meeting in San Diego. Previous winners of this award include the inventors of computers, core memory, and semiconductors. Dr. Chen was presented with the ACM/AAAI Allen Newell Award at the ACM Banquet in San Diego in June 2003. Dr. Chen is also the recipient of the Pan Wen-Yuan Outstanding Research Award in 2004. Starting in 1997, the awards have been given to three individuals each year (one from Taiwan, one from Mainland China, and one "overseas"-outside Mainland China or Tawain) in the high-tech fields (including electronics, semiconductors, telecommunications, computer science, computer hardware/computer software, Information technology and information science. In 2003, the overseas winner was Prof. Andrew Yao of Princeton University, who is also a winner of the ACM Turing Award.