[8][11][12][13] Her paternal ancestor Hsu Kuang-ch'i, known by his baptismal name Paolo in the West, was the late 16th-century Catholic Ming Dynasty imperial minister and statesman who, with Matteo Ricci, engaged in the first cross-cultural exchanges and translations of scientific and philosophical texts in classical Chinese and Latin, for which he has been beatified by the Vatican.

In 2003, she received a pre-doctoral Mellon Fellowship to study the history of science at the Needham Research Institute[10][16] at Cambridge University, where she conducted GIS-based analysis of a set of ancient maps and published "An Emic Perspective on the Mapmaker's Art in Western Han China" in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.

[21][22] From 2006 to 2013, Hsu served on UNESCO scientific committees for World Heritage Sites during which she conducted three missions to Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Western China, and published a white paper "The Exceptional Universal Value of the Road Systems in Ancient Empires: A Comparative Study of the Chinese Oasis Route of the Early Silk Road and the Qhapag Ñan"[23][16] Hsu worked in the Taklamakan Desert.

[36] Hsu-Tang was a managing director on the board of the Metropolitan Opera from 2014 to July 2021 and is known to support new works and contemporary productions such as Exterminating Angel, L'amour de loin, and Akhanaten.

[41] In 2018, Hsu-Tang and her husband Oscar Tang were listed among Town and Country's 50 most influential American families in media, art, and culture.

[42] During the COVID pandemic, she co-founded The Yellow Whistle campaign to combat anti-Asian violence and historical discrimination against Americans of Asian descent.

[47] On March 15, 2023, Hsu-Tang received The Met Museum's Women Leaders Award, with New York Governor Kathy Hochul, Congresswoman Nydia Valesquez, and curator Jasmine Wahi.

[49] Hsu married philanthropist and financier Oscar Tang in a private ceremony at the 17th-century Historic Christ Church with celebrations at the Tides Inn Resort in Lancaster County, Virginia on May 18, 2013.