Linda Chen Yang

Linda Chen Yang was born December 7, 1947 in Taipei, Taiwan to Pin Chen (father) and Xi-Chun Shen (mother). Linda attended Bei Yi Nu middle and high school with her lifelong best friends Alice Pao and Josephine Ma and went on to Fu Jen University in Taiwan where she graduated in 1969 with a B.S. degree in Biology. Before pursuing graduate studies in the U.S., she met David Yang through a warm introduction by their fathers. They hit it off immediately and were engaged within a year cementing their destiny together that would last over 50 years and for the rest of her life.

Upon receiving her M.S. in Microbiology from Bowling Green State University, Linda and David married in an intimate and joyous ceremony in 1971 in New Haven, CT while David worked on his PhD from Yale. From then, Linda and David were never apart as she held research positions at Yale, Rockefeller, Georgetown, and finally, at NIH where she led a nearly 40-year career as a biologist in molecular hematology and later cutting-edge molecular genetics. She contributed to 17 publications in top science and medical journals including Nature Medicine. Linda also touched the lives of many post-doctorates and interns as they entered the competitive world of science sharing her insights, experience and ease with which she balanced career and family. She was a leader in the Chinese American community at NIH and organized her friends and colleagues throughout the years into lunch groups and mahjong clubs that forged another set of lifelong friends from her life and career in the D.C. area.

In her personal life, her beauty and wonderful sense of fashion were only the beginning. Underneath her lovely façade was an irresistible, keen and sometimes mischievous sense of humor that could make anyone erupt in uncontrollable laughter including herself. Her humility and ability to laugh at herself only took the laughter to new heights. She was a fiercely loyal wife, mother, sister and friend never straying from her close relationships and always thinking about how to bring people together for good fun, food and to make new memories. Linda was born with a huge heart that had the capacity to lovingly accept everyone and everything in her orbit as they were. Her social grace complemented her adventurous spirit as she loved to experience new places and try new things making her a natural and unassuming leader. Linda was a lover of Chinese soap operas, mahjong, seafood, nature and botanical gardens, pink and purple, travel and anything social.

Without question, Linda’s pride and joy and her deepest devotion was her family. She epitomized unconditional love for all fortunate enough to be part of her family and extended family. Contrary to her peers at the time, she raised her two boys, Stephen and Alan, with a loving free hand letting them test boundaries, explore non-traditional paths, make mistakes and realize their fullest potential. She was always proud of their accomplishments no matter how big or small, and wanted nothing but the best for them using whatever time and resources she had. She dressed with style while remaining frugal, made delicious meals with nothing but leftovers and provided for extracurriculars, camps and top notch educations for her children while working full time. She engaged with her two sons and her six grandchildren, Tyler, Sienna, Savannah, Calvin, Jackson and Parker more as a playmate than as an authority figure, and they loved her even more for it. She had unrivaled conviction and clarity in big decisions like career, life and death, investments and the possibilities for her family. As the heroine of her family, her conviction never wavered and she remained fearless in her pursuit of the life she wanted for them until the very end. Her family is blessed to be living the life she had always dreamed of and is committed to live it to the fullest in her legacy.