Since entering the public eye, Priscilla Chan has transformed from a medical student to the cofounder of a widely recognized philanthropy.
She, alongside her husband, Mark Zuckerberg, has used social media to share glimpses into her life as both their family and business ventures expand.
Here’s a look at Chan’s life and career.
Chan grew up in Massachusetts, where she played tennis and joined her high school’s robotics club
Chan is the daughter of Chinese refugee parents who fled to the US from Vietnam before she was born. She was born in February 1985 in Massachusetts.
“Growing up, my first job was to be a translator for my family at age 6. As a teenager, my job was working the front desk at the restaurant they were eventually able to open,” Chan said of her childhood during 2019 ASU + GSV Summit. “Always, always, I knew that I was an outsider. Kids bullied me. I worried constantly that my family might not have enough money to get by.”
She later attended Quincy High School in Massachusetts, where she was a member of the robotics club and played tennis.
“My time in science lab and the tennis and robotics teams was the foundation for my success in college,” Chan wrote in a 2017 Facebook post.
While at Quincy High School, Chan said she was once voted “class genius.” She graduated as class valedictorian in 2003 before attending Harvard University, where she majored in biology.
Chan and Zuckerberg first met in Boston during a college party
Chan met Zuckerberg at Harvard University in 2003. The pair struck up a conversation during a party at Zuckerberg’s Jewish fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi, while they waited to use the restroom.
Zuckerberg recalled their meet-cute in a 2023 Instagram post, writing, “We met at a going-away party my friends threw for me in college when they thought I was about to get kicked out of school. I asked her out but told her we’d need to go out soon since I might only have a few days left.”
At the time, Zuckerberg believed he might get kicked out over “Facemash,” a website that allowed users to rank people based on their attractiveness. Facemash inspired Zuckerberg to develop Facebook, the social media app that would help him become a Silicon Valley titan. Chan was among the first people to join Facebook.
Although Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard University to pursue Facebook in California, Chan continued her education and graduated in 2007. She then joined Zuckerberg in California, where she attended medical school at the University of California, San Francisco, the following year.
The couple tied the knot in 2012, the same year Chan graduated from medical school and Zuckerberg took Facebook public at a valuation of $104 billion. They spent time in Italy for their honeymoon. From 2012 to 2017, Chan worked as a pediatrician in San Francisco.
Chan and Zuckerberg welcomed their eldest daughter, Maxima, in 2015. In a Facebook post from July 2015, Zuckerberg revealed Chan suffered three miscarriages before giving birth to Maxima. They announced the birth of their second daughter, August, in 2017 and their third daughter, Aurelia, in 2023.
Chan is not Jewish; her husband said in a Facebook post that she’s Buddhist. Zuckerberg reads his children a bedtime prayer in Mandarin, she said.
By 2023, Zuckerberg had already rebranded his business venture as Meta, a technology company that owned Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
Zuckerberg’s net worth is $209.2 billion, according to the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires List.
Chan and Zuckerberg have shared behind-the-scenes moments of their relationship over the years
It’s not surprising that Chan and Zuckerberg have used social media to celebrate their big and small moments.
In 2010, Chan moved in with Zuckerberg. He announced the news on Facebook.
Anthony Behar/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
“Priscilla Chan is moving in this weekend,” he wrote. “Now we have 2x everything, so if you need any household appliances, dishes, glasses, etc please come by and take them before we give them away.”
In 2024, Zuckerberg took to Instagram to share a photo of his gift to Chan: a 7-foot-tall statue sculpted in her image. For Chan’s 40th birthday, Zuckerberg shared a video of himself performing as Benson Boone, complete with a glittery jumpsuit.
Chan and Zuckerberg have collaborated on philanthropy and scientific research efforts
Chan cofounded The Primary School, a private school in East Palo Alto for disadvantaged children, in 2016. She served as part-time board chair from 2015 to 2023.
Chan and Zuckerberg also cofounded the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, an organization focused on curing diseases, promoting personalized learning, and connecting people, in 2015. In an announcement celebrating their eldest daughter’s birth, the couple pledged to give 99% of their Facebook — now Meta — shares during their lifetimes toward fulfilling that mission.
For example, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative provided the initial funding for Reach Every Reader, an initiative launched in 2018 between several schools — including Harvard Graduate School of Education — that focuses on addressing early literacy.
SUZANNE CORDEIRO / AFP
In 2016, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative announced that it had committed $600 million toward establishing the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, a new research hub where engineers and scientists collaborate to advance technology and medicine. Five years later, the organization said it would double down on its commitment to “accelerating biomedical science and advancing human health.”
The organization conducted layoffs in 2023. At that time, a spokesperson for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative told Business Insider: “Guided by insights from our grantees, research, and educators, our work in education continues to evolve, and the structure of our teams has changed as a result.”
In November 2025, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative announced that it would further lean into science by creating “a first-of-its-kind initiative combining frontier artificial intelligence and frontier biology to dramatically accelerate scientific progress toward understanding and addressing human disease.”
“Today, advances in artificial intelligence are opening new frontiers for science. To meet this moment, Biohub is launching the first large-scale scientific initiative dedicated to advancing artificial intelligence for biology,” the announcement said.
