Citizenship United States Height 1.65 m Children Maxima Chan Zuckerberg | Occupation Pediatrician Nationality American Parents Yvonne Chan, Dennis Chan | |
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Born February 24, 1985 (age 32) ( 1985-02-24 ) Braintree, Massachusetts, U.S. Residence Palo Alto, California, U.S. Alma mater Harvard UniversityUniversity of California, San Francisco Spouse(s) Mark Zuckerberg (m. 2012) Education University of California, San Francisco (2008–2012), Harvard University (2003–2007), Quincy High School (2003) Similar Mark Zuckerberg, Randi Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Bill Gates, Dustin Moskovitz Profiles | ||
Priscilla Chan on meeting Mark Zuckerberg, and their goal to cure all diseases
Priscilla Chan (born February 24, 1985) is an American philanthropist and pediatrician. She is the wife of Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder and CEO of Facebook. As of 2015, she and her husband have pledged more than $1.6 billion to charities. In December 2015, they pledged to donate 99% of their Facebook shares, valued at $45 billion, to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a philanthropic and political action company that focuses on health and education.
Contents
- Priscilla Chan on meeting Mark Zuckerberg and their goal to cure all diseases
- Biography
- Philanthropy
- References
Biography
Chan was born in Braintree, Massachusetts, and grew up in Quincy, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston. Her parents were ethnic Chinese refugees who fled Vietnam in refugee boats. She grew up speaking Cantonese and served as an interpreter for her grandparents. She has two younger sisters. In 2003, she graduated as class valedictorian from Quincy High School, and was voted "class genius" by her classmates. According to a Facebook post by Mark Zuckerberg, Chan is a Buddhist.
Chan entered Harvard University in 2003, where she met and began dating Mark Zuckerberg. She graduated in 2007 with a BA in biology, and also studied Spanish. She is fluent in Cantonese, English and Spanish. She is the first person in her family to graduate from college.
After graduation, she taught science at the private Harker School for a year, before entering medical school at the University of California, San Francisco in 2008. She graduated in 2012, and finished her pediatric residency in the summer of 2015. She married Zuckerberg on May 19, 2012, a day after Facebook's stock market launch.
On July 31, 2015, Zuckerberg announced that he and Chan were expecting a baby girl. He said he felt confident that the risk of miscarrying was low so far into the pregnancy, after Chan had already suffered three miscarriages. Chan and Zuckerberg announced the birth of their daughter, Maxima Chan Zuckerberg ("Max", Chinese: 陈明宇; pinyin: Chén Míngyǔ; Jyutping: Can4 Ming4 Jyu5), on December 1, 2015. In March 2017, he announced that the two are expecting another daughter.
Philanthropy
Zuckerberg and Chan have pledged about $1.6 billion to charities, including a donation of $75 million to San Francisco General Hospital, where Chan worked. In 2013, they gave 18 million Facebook shares (valued at more than $970 million) to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. The Chronicle of Philanthropy placed the couple at the top of its list of 50 most generous American philanthropists for that year. They also pledged $120 million to public schools in the San Francisco Bay Area.
On December 1, 2015, Chan and Zuckerberg posted an open Facebook letter to their newborn daughter. They pledged to donate 99% of their Facebook shares, then valued at $45 billion, to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which is their new charitable foundation that focuses on health and education.
Chan's charitable goals focus on education, healthcare and science, which are closely tied to her personal background. She is considered to have had a strong influence on the philanthropy of her husband. She plans to launch The Primary School in 2016, a nonprofit organization that will provide K–12 education as well as prenatal care, in East Palo Alto, California.