Professor Wai Chen is Professor, Psychiatry Discipline Lead, Curtin Medical School, Curtin University. He is Professor of Youth Mental Health and Developmental Neuropsychiatry, Fiona Stanley Hospital, WA. He is also adjunct professor, Graduate School of Education, UWA; adjunct professor, School of Medicine (Fremantle), Notre Dame University Australia, WA; and adjunct professor, Department of Psychology and Exercise Science, Murdoch University. He is a member of the Eunethydis (European Network for Hyperkinetic Disorders) by invitation. He is a member of the international Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP) consortium.

He read medicine at Southampton University, and a Master of Philosophy degree at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University, before completing a PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) at the Institute of Psychiatry. He received his psychiatry and child psychiatry training as a lecturer at the Maudsley Hospital and Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London. His research is in the areas of ADHD, neurodevelopmental disorders, emotional dysregulation, their treatments, dissociation, resilience and social recovery in CAMHS.

In 2010, he was jointly awarded the BMA Medical Book Awards: ‘Highly Commended’ – Digital and online resources – for "Living with ADHD".

He served between 2011-2013 as an external peer reviewer for the DSM5 Clinical and Public Health Committee (DSM5 CPHC) during the DSM5 revision.

He was a member of the international expert advisory panel for Legatum Institute, advising the compilation of the "Health Pillar" within the Legatum Global Prosperity Index, compiled annually for 149 countries and as a complementary index of GDP for informing federal and national government policies.

In 2019, his published research on deliberate self-harm was selected as one of the nineteen presentations, in the “Science Land In Parliament” event at the WA State Parliament, hosted by WA Minister of Health.

He contributed the chapter on Child Neuropsychiatry in the forthcoming Oxford Textbook of Neuropsychiatry, published by Oxford University Press. He has also been commissioned to author and edit a book on the theories, treatments and clinical practices of ADHD, by invitation from Sage Publication, London.

He served as a member of the State-wide Mental Health Research Strategy Advisory Group, WA; and also, as a member of the Interagency Expert Advisory Group (IEAG) of the Ministerial Taskforce into Public Mental Health Services for Infants, Children and Adolescents in Western Australia (ICA Taskforce). He serves as an Expert Advisor for the Suicide Aftercare Project.