Elaine Chew, piano, has performed widely as soloist and chamber musician in the North America (the United States, and Canada), Asia (Singapore, China), and Europe (Finland, Scotland and Slovenia). She has appeared in concert at venues and festivals such as Los Angeles' Newman Recital Hall at USC, Zipper Hall as part of the Music of Changes concert series, Boston's Jordan Hall as part of the Foundation for Chinese Performing Arts Recital Series, the Rockport Chamber Music Festival as a featured young artist, the Singapore Embassy in Washington D.C. as part of the Embassy Series, and Victoria Concert Hall as soloist with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra in the President's Charity Concert. Chew has premiered compositions by, and worked with, contemporary composers Chen Yi, Peter Child, Chris Dench, Tamar Diesendruck, Jose Elizondo, John Harbison, Cecilia Heejeong Kim, Alba Potes, Eric Sawyer, Paul Schoenfield, and Ivan Tcherepnin. She has recorded Peter Child's Doubles III, written for her and based on songs from her childhood, and his Trio for violin, clarinet and piano (Neuma Records). Her performance of Poulenc's Sextuor recorded live with the East Winds Quintet, the Lehigh University faculty wind ensemble, airs frequently on WDIY, the public radio station in the Lehigh Valley; her performance of Ivan Tcherepnin's Fêtes - Variations on Happy Birthday can be heard on WGBH's Art of the States program.

Born in Buffalo, New York, Chew spent her childhood in Singapore, before returning to the United States for undergraduate studies at Stanford University and graduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). At age 16, she was the youngest of four finalists to solo with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra at the Diners Club Pianist of the Year Competition; and subsequently went on to garner awards at other national competitions. In 1994, she was one of three student pianists selected by John Harbison to accompany Yo-Yo Ma in an open rehearsal of his Cello Concerto. A 1997 grant from the MIT Science and Technology Initiative (MISTI-China Program) resulted in a field study and numerous concerts on contemporary Chinese piano music. In 1998, she received MIT's prestigious Laya and Jerome Wiesner Award for her "sustained, ubiquitous, unfailingly enlivening contribution to our musical life at MIT" (John Harbison). According to pianist David Deveau, "[Elaine is a] brilliant and versatile pianist, who has distinguished herself in the United States and abroad as a performer of elegance, taste and virtuosity ... one of the most remarkable musicians ever to grace our section." She subsequently served as Affiliated Artist of MIT's Music and Theatre Arts, and as founder and artistic director of the Aurelius Ensemble until 2000.

After a brief stint at Lehigh University as affiliated artist and visiting engineering professor, Chew joined the faculty of the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering in 2001, where she founded and heads the Music Computation and Cognition (MuCoaCo) Laboratory. At USC, she is the first honoree of the Viterbi Early Career Chair, and Associate Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering and of Electrical Engineering, and serves as Research Area Director of the Integrated Media Systems Center. In 2005, she was recognized "for her research on performer-centered approaches to computer-assisted music making, and for her efforts to integrated research and education at the intersection of music and engineering" by the prestigious Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. Her concerts in the new millennium include performances integrating engineering technology for artistic and explanatory effect, including The Mathematics in Music - a concert and conversation with Elaine Chew (presented in Los Angeles, Singapore, and British Columbia), and Flying Sonics - a tale of immersive audio and diverse instruments (with pianist Dennis Thurmond and audio engineer Chris Kyriakakis) at USC's Newman Recital Hall, and Dark Blue Sky Dream (with violinist/media artist Julia Ogrydziak) at the Oakland Planetarium.

She holds diplomas and degrees in piano performance from the Trinity College, London (FTCL, LTCL), and Stanford University. She studied piano primarily with Ong Lip Tat and Goh Lee Choo in Singapore, James Goldsworthy and George Barth at Stanford University, and David Deveau at MIT. She studied chamber music with Marcus Thompson, John Harbison, Lynn Chang, and Jean Rife at MIT, and with Phillip Levy at Stanford; and, vocal repertoire with John Oliver (MIT), and Judith Bettina (Stanford).