Tsen was born in a poor fisherman's family in Xinjian Country, Nanchang, Jiangxi Province.
After graduation, he worked as teacher in high schools for two years to perform the mandatory teaching service of his degree.
[3] In 1927, when Kuomintang split with the Chinese Communist Party, Tsen and some teachers and students protested against the breakup and called for alliance.
Guo Moruo, then serving as director of the political department of the National Revolutionary Army, visited them in the hospital.
Tsen received his doctoral degree in February 1934 under the supervision of Emmy Noether and Friedrich Karl Schmidt, and he dedicated his dissertation to his elder cousin Tsebu S. Lee.
[2] Tsen returned to China in July 1935 and was invited by Chen Jiangong to National Chekiang University in Hangzhou as professor in the area of algebra.
Tsen taught a course on algebra and a course on group theory based on the German textbooks of van der Waerden and Andreas Speiser respectively.
The paper contained the work that he had done in Hamburg, and he dedicated it to the memory of his advisor Noether, who died in the previous year.
The campus of the school was temples scattered on Mount Lu [zh] in the suburb of Xichang in Xikang Province.
Tsen died of a stomach ulcer in Xichang, Xikang[3] on October 1, 1940,[1] and the school held a memorial service for him on November 18, 1940.