Tokyo, Japan - April 16, 2020
Yokogawa Electric Corporation announces that Dr. Penny Chen of Yokogawa Corporation of America has been selected by Control, a prestigious and influential industry publication in the US, to be inducted into its Process Automation Hall of Fame, Class of 2020. Dr. Chen is senior principal technology strategist at Yokogawa Corporation of America's U.S. Technology Center based in Dallas, Texas.
Penny Chen
The Process Automation Hall of Fame was created in 2001 to recognize the contributions made by outstanding professionals working in the process automation and control industry, and Penny Chen is among four inductees in 2020. Existing members from Yokogawa are Yutaka Wakasa, a former director and the first Japanese inductee, Dr. Maurice J. Wilkins, executive advisor to Yokogawa's marketing headquarters, and Dave Emerson, vice president of the U.S. Technology Center.
After completing undergraduate studies in electrical engineering in China, Dr. Chen moved to the United States to undertake her master's and doctoral degrees. After graduating, she worked in the telecommunications industry focusing on network and wireless communications. Her nomination reflects the contributions that she has made applying that knowledge to contribute to the adoption of wireless communications in the process industry.
Penny Chen has leveraged the International Society of Automation (ISA) as a platform to promote various types of wireless technologies for industrial applications, especially ISA100 Wireless* networking and passive wireless sensor tag technologies. Dr. Chen has been involved in standardizing wireless technologies for industrial automation through the development of the ISA100 standards, including the ISA100.11a standard on wireless sensor networks for industrial automation, and has established a certification process to ensure the interoperability of the ISA100 Wireless technology. Dr. Chen has served as chairperson of the ISA100 Wireless Compliance Institute (WCI) and co-chair of the ISA100.15 Wireless Backhaul Backbone Network Working Group. She has also served as director of the ISA Communication Division from 2015 to 2017. In recognition of her achievements, she was selected for ISA Fellow Membership in 2017.
Dr. Chen continues to play a vital role at Yokogawa as the leader of a taskforce that is working toward the development of a robotics services platform.
* An open, IP-based wireless communication network protocol with an international standard that was defined by ISA