Scholarship Honors Father’s Career as UML Professor

By Katharine Webster

For a decade after he graduated from college in China, the late Chemical Engineering Prof. Huan-Yang Chang worked as an engineer in a paper factory in Taiwan, with the goal of traveling to the United States for graduate school.

With help from many people, he finally realized his dream, earning a master’s degree in chemical engineering at the University of Rhode Island in 1957 and a Ph.D. in the same field at Iowa State University in 1960. He worked as a teaching assistant at both schools.

After graduation, Chang worked in industry for a few years, but he loved teaching and learning more. He began applying for college jobs and was hired as an assistant professor by the Chemical Engineering Department at UMass Lowell (then Lowell Technological Institute) in 1964, says his daughter, Nancy Chang.

In 1970, he won a NASA fellowship to help conceptualize a moon rover, an experience that his department chair encouraged so that Chang could help his students become better research and development engineers. Chang also created the first classes on applying computer science in chemical engineering and co-authored an early book on the subject with a math professor, Ira Earl Over.

He was promoted to full professor in 1983 and retired a decade later.

Chang greatly valued the support he received from his department chair and dean early in his career, especially the assistance he got in navigating his application for tenure.

“I think my dad appreciated how many people helped him along in his career,” Nancy says. “And he really wanted to help his students. He was so dedicated to teaching undergraduates and supervising theses for graduate students.”

After her father died in 2015, Nancy wanted to continue helping UMass Lowell students in his honor.

She first planned to make a gift to UMass Lowell in her will. But Sally Washburn, senior director of development for the Francis College of Engineering, suggested that if Nancy could establish a scholarship during her lifetime, she would see the benefit to students. Nancy agreed – and is glad that she did, especially when a heart-warming thank-you letter arrives from each year’s scholarship recipient.

She and her mother and brother greatly enjoy reading those letters, which demonstrate the students’ ambition and promise. The letters also inspire Nancy to ask herself, “What more can I do?” she says. She continues to donate to UMass Lowell.

“Giving now, while you’re still alive and able to see your impact, is so rewarding,” she says. “It doesn’t seem like a lot, but when you get the thank-you letters, it seems like a lot to the recipient, and it’s very moving. My dad, he would be really happy to see his legacy.”

By donating during her lifetime, Nancy also was able to take advantage of a company gift-matching program. She donated a little more than $15,000 worth of stock, and her employer at the time, Merck & Co., matched her gift dollar for dollar to establish the Professor Huan Yang Chang Endowed Scholarship Fund in 2018, which benefits a chemical engineering student with financial need every year.

Merck’s matching program “turbo-charged” her gift, she says.

“Merck has a very generous program, so it was a great way to multiply my donation,” she says. “People should check into what their company offers.”