The Stunning Transformation Of Mark Zuckerberg's Wife, Priscilla

Since 2004, Mark Zuckerberg has been at the forefront of entrepreneurship. As an ambitious college student, Zuckerberg launched Facebook, which would become the cornerstone of other social media platforms. Paired with the biopic "The Social Network" — with a cast consisting of Jesse Eisenberg and former NSYNC singer Justin Timberlake — and a list of controversies, he received much public attention over the years. It wasn't all bad, though, because it introduced the world to his partner, Priscilla Chan.

Since meeting in the early 2000s, Chan and Zuckerberg have been inseparable. While most may know Chan as Zuckerberg's wife, many may not know of the notable success she has sustained over the years. With her life's mission aligning with the development of society's youth, Chan has dedicated years to bettering society in any way she can. In doing so, she's been recognized among notable publications like Time and Forbes for being one of the most influential women of the 21st century. Given her private nature, Chan is surely not an individual who steps into the spotlight unless it's for a cause she believes in. Through this, the general public admired not only her partnership with the Facebook creator but also her overall career. Her journey to get there wouldn't be easy, but as of 2025, the exceptional results of her transformation have been clear as day. To learn more about her inspiring growth, here is the stunning transformation of Priscilla Chan.

Priscilla Chan was born on February 24, 1985. She is the eldest daughter of Chinese-Vietnamese refugees who fled from their native country to build a better life in America. Though she'd find a sense of community thanks to a local Catholic Church in Braintree, Massachusetts, Chan felt alienated. When Chan started middle school, this sense of isolation became stronger amid harsh treatment from her classmates. 

During a 2021 appearance on Standford's "View From the Top" podcast, Chan spoke about navigating her preteen years. In addition to noting that her neighbors from the outskirts of Boston shared similarities with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon from "Good Will Hunting," she revealed that she was bullied heavily in middle school. "Middle school is awful," she added. "Thank God we're all not in middle school." While this didn't help with her brewing sense of isolation, it did fuel her ambition in life. "I was eating lunch in the bathroom, in a public school bathroom, because I didn't want to go out to the playground, the blacktop after lunch. And I was just like, 'This can't be the rest of my life, right? Like, there's got to be more,'" she recalled. "And so, like, I remember as a sixth grader, I was like, 'I'm gonna buckle down. I don't know what's out there. I'm gonna work really hard and I'm gonna get there.'"

Priscilla Chan forcibly turned her horrible middle school experience around when she attended Quincy High School in Massachusetts. There, Chan focused her adventurous spirit on various extracurricular activities. One of these happened to be the robotics team, where she first discovered her passion for science and technology. With her academics at the forefront of her high school years, her science teacher Peter Swanson encouraged Chan to get involved in a sport — most notably, tennis — to help with her college applications. Though she'd only played for one year and was admittedly not the greatest on the court, it did help her convey a diverse set of interests to several universities.

Chan's academic achievements, however, spoke for themselves. By the time she was a senior, Chan, along with her classmate Bao Truong, was awarded the "Class Genius" superlative. After Chan successfully took the SATs — standardized tests that her parents knew nothing about — Harvard offered her a full-ride scholarship. To top it off, Chan was valedictorian in 2003 and gave a graduation speech in which she quoted a line from Dr. Seuss' "Oh! The Places You'll Go" (via Daily Mail). "Congratulations! Today is your day," she said in her valedictorian speech. "You're off to great places! You're off and away!"

After graduating high school, Priscilla Chan attended Harvard where she pursued a degree in biology. Chan noted that because she was the first of her family to even attend college, the number of opportunities at her disposal was overwhelming. Along with the overwhelming sense of isolation, Chan told Norah O'Donnell on "CBS Mornings" in 2019 that she was on the verge of dropping out. "I think I immediately knew when I showed up on campus that something out of this world had happened," she explained. "But I wanted to give up."

Luckily, her participation in an after-school program opened her eyes to the opportunity in front of her. As Chan told O'Donnell of the harsh circumstances kids in the after-school program went through, "I saw what needed to be done, I knew I had to stay." During a 2014 interview with "Today," this experience ultimately shaped how she views education. While noting its importance, she spoke about the challenges that come with not only being held in high regard academically but also being the first of her family to experience higher education (via The Hollywood Reporter). "Education is an incredibly personal issue for me," she said. "If you're the first generation to go to college, sometimes you don't realize your potential until others point it out."

After confirming she wanted to stay at Harvard in 2003, Priscilla Chan eventually met Mark Zuckerberg, who also attended the university and majored in computer science and psychology. In 2010, Chan told The New Yorker that they first bumped into each other while waiting in line for the bathroom at a frat party. "He was this nerdy guy who was just a little bit out there," she stated. "I remember he had these beer glasses that said 'pound include beer dot H.' It's a tag for C++. It's like college humor but with a nerdy, computer-science appeal." 

While the two appeared to hit it off, Chan noticed an immediate red flag after their first date. In a 2019 interview with Gayle King on "CBS Mornings," Chan noted that Zuckerberg confessed that he was willing to blow off an at-home midterm just to continue their date (via Unilad). According to Chan, she took the gesture to mean that he was lazy, stating, "I thought he was going nowhere, he's blowing off his homework." She'd later learn that this wasn't the case at all, and she told The New Yorker that she was eventually drawn to Zuckerberg's ambition. "I suddenly go to Harvard, where there's this world where people had real and meaningful intellectual pursuits," she stated. "Then I met Mark, who so exemplified that. ... I was just, like, 'This person speaks a whole new language and lives in a framework that I've never seen before.'"

In 2007, Priscilla Chan graduated from Harvard University. In addition to being overwhelmed by the college experience entirely, Chan found her passion when she participated in an after-school program for underprivileged kids. Not only did this motivate her to stay in college but she also worked closely with several children who had challenges she had never faced. One of them happened to be a little girl who after not showing up to the program for an entire week was found at a nearby playground with two of her front teeth broken.

In her 2020 interview with CNN Business, Chan stated that this prompted her to pursue a career dedicated to helping children in need. "I was devastated. I thought, 'What happened? What did I do wrong?'" she said. "I thought at the time, 'I am not enough yet. ... I need more skills. I need more power to be able to solve this.' And so, when you're 20 years old and a type-A Harvard student, the answer is medical school." After graduating, Chan worked as an elementary school science teacher before she attended the University of California San Francisco to become a pediatrician. After she earned her medical degree in 2012 and completed her residency in 2015, she began to work full time at San Francisco General Hospital where, in her eyes, she could make a change.

Long before she was born, Priscilla Chan's grandparents were a quintessential influence on her family's move to America. Through finding stability in Boston, her parents were able to raise three healthy children while also chasing the American Dream. Her grandparents still spoke their native language — Cantonese — and as Chan told The Hollywood Reporter in 2014, she served as their interpreter from a very young age. "My mom working two jobs throughout my childhood, my grandparents not speaking English ... so it was my job to interpret for them," she said.

This meant that at a young age, Chan was already fluent in two languages, which she'd confirmed during her 2014 interview with Savannah Guthrie from "Today," stating, "I grew up speaking Cantonese at home. English, obviously, from school and growing up here." Thanks to her newfound love as a pediatrician, however, Chan took it upon herself to learn yet another language. According to Chan, there was a point in her career when most of her patients spoke Spanish. So, in turn, Chan saw learning the language as a necessity because it would minimize any language barriers. "You can be a better provider and really connect better with individuals if you can speak their language," she noted. "And so, I started studying Spanish in college, and get lots of practice in my work."

From their first meeting in 2003, Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan kept certain details of their relationship fairly private. With Zuckerberg maintaining his status as a Facebook CEO and Chan pursuing her higher education, the two seemingly made it work for the better part of a decade. 2012, however, had big changes on the horizon for the two. In addition to Chan getting her medical degree and Facebook (Meta) going public, the two topped off these notable accomplishments by having a wedding ceremony in the confines of their own home. 

The wedding was held on May 19, 2012, and came as a surprise to the general public. According to People, it appeared to be deliberate because it was a private ceremony they planned months in advance. Because Chan had graduated from the University of California San Francisco, the two invited fewer than 100 guests to celebrate this occasion at their house in Palo Alto, California. Instead, their backyard was home to a wedding ceremony, which proved a surprise for those in attendance. Before their special day, Zuckerberg designed a ruby ring that Chan didn't get to see until the wedding. Between sporting a $4,700 Claire Pettibone dress and having their guests grub on some of their favorite dishes from local establishments — like Fuki Sushi and Burdick Chocolate — the private ceremony proved a success.

In 2015, Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg experienced another major milestone in their relationship — parenthood. After announcing that Chan was expecting in July of that year, the two introduced their first child, Maxima Chan Zuckerberg, to the world in December 2015. Paired with a letter dedicated to their newborn, Zuckerberg suggested that the two were committed to becoming full-fledged parents. Their family only continued to grow when they introduced their second child, August Chan Zuckerberg, in August 2017, and their third, Aurelia Chan Zuckerberg in March 2023.

Although they've taken to parenthood quite easily, Chan's journey to motherhood didn't come without its hardships. When it was announced that she was pregnant, Zuckerberg unveiled that this came after three miscarriages, stating, "We've been trying to have a child for a couple of years and have had three miscarriages along the way" (via Daily Mail). During her 2016 interview with "Today," Chan opened up about becoming a mother. In addition to deeming it a "miracle," she also spoke about her experience with miscarriages and why it was important to share this information with the world. "Sharing our experience with pregnancy was incredibly important because we realized how challenging and difficult that was. And there are really dark moments where you think you're alone," she said. "We realized that we weren't ... I think having that, knowing that you're not alone, was incredibly important for us. And we wanted others to know that they weren't alone either."

On the day Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg announced the birth of their daughter Maxima, Zuckerberg penned a lengthy letter expressing their excitement for what's to come in the future. In doing so, they detailed the world's societal advantages and disadvantages. The two then launched their philanthropic organization the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, with their first plan of attack to dedicate 99% of their Facebook shares to funding their philanthropic efforts, equating to about $45 billion. During her 2023 interview with Fortune magazine, Chan further explained why the two embarked on this journey in 2015. "At that time, Mark and I decided we wanted to dedicate our experiences, our expertise, and our resources to addressing some of society's biggest challenges," she stated.

Although Chan has always wanted to help society's youth, becoming a mother only amplified those urges. Their initiative appears to be ambitious, too. Aside from wanting to build a better future for everyone from children to local communities, they've also expressed their want to cure, prevent, and manage all diseases. In addition to funding certain programs like the Kempner Institute, their recent efforts have been leaning into scientific research. Whether Chan is opening up research facilities or announcing the integration of artificial intelligence to improve children's education, her persistent desire to improve our world can be felt as she continues to get close to the organization's ambitious goal.

Despite the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative's ambitious mission, this wouldn't be the first time Priscilla Chan aimed to improve the well-being of children's education. In 2010, Chan — alongside her husband, Mark Zuckerberg — donated $100 million to public schools in Newark, New Jersey. Though the general public deemed their efforts a failure, it was clear Chan was willing to aid public school districts in need.

In 2016, Chan launched The Primary School, a nonprofit private school located in Palo Alto, California. Funded by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the school aims to help less fortunate students from preschool up to sixth grade (and soon to be beyond) receive the education they deserve. In a 2018 interview with Quartz, Chan noted the shortcomings of her prior efforts in 2010 and how she's learned to prioritize one issue at a time when it comes to helping children. "The Primary School takes a holistic view of children, integrating healthcare, education, and parent empowerment. When you adopt that mindset, you can end up in a scenario of, oh, this child can't participate safely in the classroom, you trace the problem back, and you have to solve poverty. That's not possible," she stated. "We have to be able to get a child safely in a classroom and productive without solving all of poverty first. Right? You have to start somewhere, pick that, learn from it, do a good job, then take the next logical step."