Chang grew up in Gansu, China and received his B.E. with specialization of material chemistry at South China University of Technology in 2014. Then he came to the U.S. and received his M. Sc. degree in polymer engineering at University of Akron in 2015. He then attended University of Virginia in 2017 and pursued his Ph.D. graduate study with Prof. Sen Zhang. His work is mainly centered on well-defined catalytic centers construction and clean energy conversion in the electrocatalysis approach.

As a postdoc in the Mallouk group, Chang studies high-performance transition metal-based electrocatalysts for CO2 reduction and water splitting. He investigates the microenvironment effects on electrode surfaces and constructs high porosity architecture of electrodes based on the novel electrocatalysts.

Outside of the lab, Chang enjoys listening to traditional Chinese cross-talk, cooking, and playing billiards.