Meng Chen received his Ph.D. in Plant Physiology from Iowa State University. Meng began to study light signaling in plants when he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute with Joanne Chory. Meng started his lab in 2008 at Duke University, where he continued investigating phytochrome signaling and the phytochrome B containing subnuclear membraneless organelles called photobodies. Following a move to UC Riverside in 2015, the Chen lab elucidated a nucleus-to-plastid signaling pathway for controlling chloroplast transcription. His research interests broadened to include temperature signaling, nuclear organization, and nucleus-plastid communication.