Chang was born in Taiwan in 1950. Her mother was a surgeon and her father was a civil engineer; they were wealthy
waishengren who migrated to Taiwan after their marriage during the
Great Retreat. Chang studied chemistry and physics at
Taipei First Girls' High School in
Taipei. After graduation, she attended
National Tsing Hua University, where one of her undergraduate teachers was Nobel Prize laureate
Yuan T. Lee and one of her classmates was scientist
Tse Wen Chang. Chang married Tse a few days before traveling to the United States, where both had received scholarships for graduate school: Chang at
Brown University and Tse Wen at
Harvard University. Chang also completed additional undergraduate studies at
Brown University. On the plane ride to the United States, Chang read
James Watson’s book on the discovery of the
double helix. This sparked her interest in biology, which she had not previously studied. Chang subsequently changed her academic focus to biology and transferred to
Harvard University to study
medical sciences at
Harvard Medical School. The Changs were among the first international students at the Harvard Division of Medical Sciences, but Chang had to overcome an initially poor comprehension of English. She earned her
Ph.D. in biological chemistry from Harvard Medical School in 1981. ==Work==