Professor Chang received his PhD from the University of Chicago in mathematics. His specialty is a branch of algebraic topology called topological surgery theory of high-dimensional manifolds. He has written a dozen papers on the subject and is currently completing a 600-page research monograph, which he is co-authoring with his former thesis advisor. During the past 20 years he has been the recipient of numerous internal and external research grants. More recently he has increased his involvement in various multidisciplinary projects in the humanities and social sciences.
Currently the Chair of the Department of Mathematics at Wellesley, Chang has been actively engaged in the program of increasing persistence of underrepresented and underresourced students in STEM fields. He is the co-director of the Wellesley Emerging Scholars Initiative, an in-house, content-based program created to engage first-year Wellesley students of these populations who demonstrate an aptitude or interest for mathematics and science. This program was supported for a number of years by the Mathematical Association of America and has been shown to increase retention of underrepresented minorities in these subjects.
Chang was selected by the student body to receive the Pinanski Teaching Award in his second year at Wellesley College, and by the faculty to serve on the most recent presidential search committee, which ultimately chose the first black president in the history of the College.
Before obtaining his doctorate at the University of Chicago, Chang studied mathematics and music at UC Berkeley as an undergraduate, and then mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was the recipient of a Marshall Scholarship.
