Anna Chao was born in Beijing, China. Her maternal grandfather was the Northeast China-based warlord Zhang Zuolin, who was assassinated by the Japanese in 1928. Following the Japanese invasion of Northeast China in 1931, her parents fled the region, first to Beijing where she was born, and then to the United States. They would make only one more visit to China together as a family, in 1939, and after the Communists won the Chinese Civil War in 1949 her parents had no further desire to return to their country of birth. She enrolled at Sweet Briar College, where she earned freshman and Dean's List honors. and was known by the nickname Chips, Working part-time as a waitress, and playing on four varsity sports teams, she earned a B.A.degree in zoology at Sweet Briar. She later earned a master's degree in embryology from Bryn Mawr College, and a Ph.D. in developmental genetics from the Sue Golding Graduate Division of Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, and worked as a researcher and professor at Montclair State University in New Jersey. She served on the Board of Directors at Sweet Briar College from 1984 to 1992. During that tenure, she was responsible for the college to develop a College Honors Program and the Bachelor of Science degree. She also was responsible for the development of a College Honors Program at Montclair State University. She married David Pai in 1959 and the marriage lasted until 2016 when her husband succumbed to cardiovascular problems. Pai was a son of the National Revolutionary Army general Bai Chongxi, who had worked with her uncle Marshal Zhang Xueliang during the Kuomintang Northern Expedition. In 2009 they moved to Davidson, North Carolina. She is the author of the genetics textbooks Foundations of Genetics: A Science for Society written for nonscientists to inform them of the rising importance of the science of genetics for the general population. It was published in a second edition in 1985. In 2009, she authored a science fiction novel, "Choices" about genetic engineering, Dorrance Publishing Co., Inc., under the pseudonym, A.C. White
Awards and recognition
Outstanding Young Women of America, 1964
Phi Beta Kappa Society, 1972, Theta of Virginia chapter at Sweet Briar College
