After receiving her doctorate, Chou completed
postdoctoral research with
Exxon, and joined the
Georgia Institute of Technology faculty in 1989. Chou received a two-year fellowship from the
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation between 1990 and 1992, as well as a five-year fellowship from the
David and Lucile Packard Foundation (1990–1995). Chou became an associate professor at Georgia Tech in 1993, and was promoted to full professor in 1998. Chou held the Advance Professorship in Science from 2002 to 2006, and chaired the physics department between 2005 and 2010. She returned to Taiwan to assume the directorship of the Institute of Atomic and Molecular Sciences at Academia Sinica, and took a joint adjunct professorship at
National Taiwan University. In 2013, Chou was awarded the Outstanding Award of the
Taiwan Outstanding Women in Science Awards. She was elected a fellow of the
American Physical Society in 2002, and elected to membership within Academia Sinica in 2014. After
Kuo Way withdrew from consideration and
James C. Liao was selected, Chou was appointed one of three vice presidents. Chou remained in the running until the final round of five candidates. == Personal life ==