[2] Tu was born in Taipei, Taiwan, the grandson of Taiwanese pharmacologist Tu Tsung-ming, founder of Taiwan's first private medical school (now Kaohsiung Medical University) and the first dean of the School of Medicine of National Taiwan University.
in mathematics, then entered graduate school at Harvard University, where he was mentored by professors Raoul Bott and Phillip Griffiths.
His doctoral thesis was titled "Variation of Hodge Structure and the Local Torelli Problem".
[8] Tu has been working at Tufts University since 1986, and plans to retire after 2025.
[2] On November 12, 2024, Tufts University announced that Tu would gift the university an eight-figure donation and rename the Science and Engineering Complex as the Tsungming Tu Complex in honor of Loring's late grandfather.