Education and Private Life
Min Chueh Chang was born on October 10, 1908, in the village of Dunhòu, which lies 64 miles (103 km) northwest of Taiyuan, the capital city of Shanxi province, in China. His family was able to provide for him a good education, and in 1933, he obtained a bachelor's degree in animal psychology from Tsinghua University in Beijing. In 1938, Chang won a national competition and was awarded one of the few available fellowships to study abroad. He went to spend a year at Edinburgh University studying agricultural science, but found that the university was not to his liking due to a combination of the cold weather and a perceived bias against foreigners there. On an invitation from Arthur Walton, Chang left Edinburgh University and went on to research ram spermatoza at Cambridge University. With his newfound interest in reproductive biology, Chang immersed himself in research, working together with other scientists such as John Hammond and F.H.A. Marshall, under the tutelage of Arthur Walton. In 1961, he was awarded a PhD in animal breeding by Cambridge University on his observations on the effect of testicular cooling and various hormonal treatments on the respiration, metabolism, and survival of sperm in animals.
Chang met his wife, American-born Chinese Isabelle Chin, in the library at Yale University, shortly after he moved to the United States. Chin assumed the role of the housewife in the pair's marriage, allowing Chang to delve into his work without domestic concerns. They have two daughters and a son together – Claudia Chang Tourtellotte, head of the anthropology department at Sweet Briar College; Pamela O'Malley Chang, an architect, civil engineer, and sustainable design consultant and Francis Hugh Chang, director of a health center in Boston, Massachusetts.
Upon his passing, Chang was buried in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, where he had lived and where the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology was located.
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