Lan Jen Chu was born on August 24, 1913, in Huai'an in the Jiangsu province of China.

[2] He died on July 25, 1973 in Lexington, Massachusetts, and was survived by his wife Grace Feng and three children.

[3][4] During World War II, Chu supervised research at MIT of many special antennas for use in radar and telecommunication applications.

[3] He has also authored three technical books, two of which were with Richard Adler and Robert Fano in the area of electromagnetics.

[5] Lan Jen Chu was a fellow of the American Physical Society and the Institute of Radio Engineers,[1] as well as a member of Academia Sinica.