She was a familiar figure on the University of Pennsylvania campus, often dancing on the College Green brandishing homemade flags painted with various political messages and vocally advocating nonviolent social revolution.

Her father, Sheldon Chang, was an engineer and a professor at the State University at Stony Brook, Long Island, New York.

[3] For a brief period in the early 1980s, she squatted in an abandoned Philadelphia building with others in the Powelton Village neighborhood on the edge of Drexel University campus.

[3] For 15 years she gave colorful one-woman street performances on Penn's campus and around Philadelphia to protest the government, during which she danced, sang, played the guitar and electronic keyboard, waved handmade flags, and made speeches.

In the final years of her Art Museum performances, she was joined by singer/songwriter David Downing, who wrote "Stop the Business (Transformation Day)," an anthem for her political movement.

On October 22, 1996, at 11:20 am, Change doused herself with gasoline in front of Peace Symbol, a stainless steel sculpture (Robert Engman, 1967; installed 1983) west of the Van Pelt Library and set herself on fire.

[5] Penn Police officer Bill Dailey tried to put out the flames with his jacket and was subsequently honored at a 1997 ceremony held by the school's Division of Public Safety, for attempting to prevent Change's suicide.

After he noticed the flames from a distance and determined that a person was on fire, he attempted to extinguish the conflagration by wrapping her in his patrol jacket and rolling her on the ground.

[2][5] In a packet of her writings that she delivered to The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Daily Pennsylvanian, and several friends and acquaintances (six students and two local citizens) on the morning of her death,[2] she explained the rationale behind her suicide: I want to protest the present government and economic system and the cynicism and passivity of the people ... as emphatically as I can.

"[7] A memorial is held in her honor every year on October 22 at the peace sign sculpture on the University of Pennsylvania campus where Kathy died.

[11][12] Industrial metal band Fear Factory wrote the song "Slave Labor" referring to her suicide; it was included in the 2004 album Archetype.

[17] Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes's 2016 play "Daphne's Dive," based in Philadelphia, features a character closely resembling Kathy Change.

"[20] Actor (and writer) Shin-Fei Chen portrays "Peace Activist Kathy Change" in Andrew Repasky McElhinney’s 2019 film Casual Encounters: Philadelphia True Crime Confessions.