James Chang is currently the Johnson & Johnson Distinguished Professor and Chief of the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Stanford University. Dr. Chang graduated from Stanford University with a Bachelor of Arts and Sciences with joint degrees in Biology and Economics.  He spent a year with Volunteers in Asia as a lecturer in English in Beijing, People’s Republic of China.  Following this, he graduated from Yale Medical School with Alpha Omega Alpha and Cum Laude honors.  From 1991 to 1993, he was a Sarnoff Laboratory Research Fellow at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center.  He then completed a residency in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Stanford University Medical Center and a Hand & Microsurgery Fellowship at UCLA Medical Center. 

He has spent the majority of his career at Stanford where he is currently Professor of Plastic Surgery and Orthopedic Surgery at Stanford University Medical Center. His laboratory work involves translating tissue engineering concepts to reconstruction of tendon and bone in mutilated extremities. His clinical work focuses on complex microsurgical reconstruction of the hand. Dr. Chang is the Hand Surgery volume editor for Converse’s Plastic Surgery, the authoritative six-volume textbook. He has been very involved in the training and certification of plastic surgeons and hand surgeons on the national level. Dr. Chang teaches at Stanford on many levels.  His popular sophomore seminar, Surgical Anatomy of the Hand: From Rodin to Reconstruction, is the focal point of an exhibit at the Cantor Art Center in 2014.  He has directly mentored over 100 Stanford medical students and is very involved in the training of plastic surgery residents and hand fellows.  As CMO of ReSurge International (formerly Interplast), Dr. Chang manages the service and educational programs of this charitable organization that delivers reconstructive surgery to the underserved throughout the world.

He is married to Dr. Harriet Walker Roeder, a psychiatrist.  They live on Stanford campus and have three daughters, Julia, Kathleen, and Cecilia. Jim enjoys traveling, cycling, and drinking his friends’ expensive wines in his spare time.