Anne S. Chao is a modern Chinese historian and community volunteer. She graduated from Wellesley College and obtained her PhD in modern Chinese history at Rice University. She is an Adjunct Lecturer in the Humanities and Manager of the Houston Asian American Archive (HAAA) at Rice University.

She co-founded HAAA ten years ago, and it has collected over 300 interviews of Asian Americans in the greater Houston region. Her current research focuses on the life and social networks of the founder of the Chinese Communist Party, Chen Duxiu.

A transplant to Houston for almost forty years, Anne sits on the board of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston Ballet, Wellesley College, Cooper Union for the Advancement of Arts and Science, Dunhuang Foundation, and Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center.

Anne and her husband were the 2021 recipients of the Maurice Hirsch Award for Philanthropy. Anne is a 2022 Women of Distinction honoree by the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation and the 2022 honoree for the Rice University Kinder Institute Luncheon.