Albert F. Chang was born in Taiwan, pursued graduate studies in the United States, and naturalized in 1971. He has a B.S. from National Taiwan University, a M.S. from University of Houston and California Institute of Technology, and a Ph.D. from University of Southern California. Chang served as software developer and consultant at Caltech Computing Center, member of technical staff at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA (Office of Space Operations) representative to Japan, and JPL telecommunications and mission systems manager until retirement in 2006.