After graduating from HKUST with highest honors, Chi On joined the prestigious University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Department of Electrical Engineering where he currently holds the position of Associate Professor. He is an elected Member of UCLA' s California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) and a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). His research focuses on developing top-down and bottom-up nanotechnology for nanoarchitectonics, nanotheranostics, and nanoelectronics.

Chi On' s academic excellence has won him numerous awards, including the 1999 HKUST Academic Achievement Award, the 2009 IEEE Electron Devices Society Early Career Award, the 25th IEEE International Symposium on Defect and Fault Tolerance in VLSI Systems Best Student Paper Award in 2010, and the 2011 Northrop Grumman Teaching Award. He is a named inventor on five issued patents and has authored or co-authored over 85 peer-reviewed publications and five book chapters.