Iris Chang was a journalism graduate of the University of Illinoisat Urbana, and she worked as a reporter for the Associated Press and the Chicago Tribune before winning a graduate fellowship to the writing seminars program at Johns Hopkins University. Her first book, Thread of the Silkworm, the story of Tsien Hsue-shen, father of the People's Republic of China missile program, received worldwide critical acclaim. She was the recipient of the John T. and Catherine D. MacArthur Foundation's Program on Peace and International Cooperation Award and major grants from the National Science Foundation, the Pacific Cultural Foundation, and the Harry Truman Library.
