Ji Chen obtained his doctorate from the Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), in 1999. He was a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Chemical Metallurgy, CAS, from 1999 to 2001. Then he worked at the Kanazawa University, Japan and the University of Alabama, USA, from 2002 to 2004. He has been appointed as a professor of chemistry at Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry since 2004. Among his current interests are the utilization of ionic liquids (ILs) as extraction media or extractants and ILs functionalized solvent impregnated resin for the extraction and separation of rare earth and related metal ions, the interaction of extractant with rare earth and the mechanism of interfacial mass transfer, the clean rare earth separation techniques at an industrial scale for Bayan Obo rare earth ore with mixed bastnasite and monazite and ion-adsorbed rare earth deposits in South China.