She is the inaugural Malcolm G. Chace Professor,[1] and former chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale University.

[2] Her father Sun Yü-kuang (孫裕光) was from Tianjin, and her mother Ch'en Yü-chen (陳玉真) was born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

The couple met when they were both studying in Japan, and they later moved to Beijing, where Sun taught at Peking University.

[2] In 1950, Sun was arrested by the Kuomintang (Nationalists) during the White Terror period of Taiwan, and imprisoned for ten years.

[4] In 1968,[2] she moved to the United States, where she studied at Rutgers University in New Jersey, earning a master's degree in library science in 1971.

She served as chairperson of the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures from 1991 to 1997, and director of graduate studies for many years.

[2] In 2012, Chang was awarded the DeVane Medal for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching and Scholarship by the Yale chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.