Kaiwen Chen graduated with a PhD in the Environmental Design and Planning program at Virginia Tech. She was also a fellow of the Biobuild graduate IGEP Program. Kaiwen has a Bachelor of Construction Project Management and Master of Management Science and Engineering from Southeast University, China.

Kaiwen’s research interests mainly focused on deploying drone-based sensors to detect building facade anomalies. Borrowing the idea of how birds can recognize their food or shelters, her research explored opportunities of improving the inspection efficiency of building facades in new ways.