Meemann Chang

On November 13, 2017, Chang was awarded the L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science. She was nominated for "her pioneering work on fossil records leading to insights on how aquatic vertebrates adapted to life and land." In November 2017, Chang was also awarded the Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation Achievement Prize.

In 2011, she was awarded an honorary doctor of science degree from the University of Chicago. On 5 October 2015, she received an honorary doctoral degree from the Richard Gilder Graduate School of the American Museum of Natural History. On 2 July 2021, asteroid 347336 was named after her.

After graduating from Shanghai Tongji High School in 1953, she was admitted to Beijing Institute of Geology (now China University of Geosciences (Beijing)). Soon after, she was sent to Moscow State University to study at the expense of the government. When she returned to China, she was despatched to the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 1965, she became a visiting scholar at the National Museum of Natural Science in Sweden. After the reform and opening up in 1980, she went to Sweden again and received her PhD from Stockholm University in 1982. She was director of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in 1983 and held that office until 1990. She became chairman of the Palaeontological Society of China in 1993, and served until 1997.

Meemann Chang (Chinese: 张弥曼; born 17 April 1936) also known as Zhang Miman, is a Chinese paleontologist at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP). She completed her undergraduate studies at Moscow University and completed her PhD thesis entitled 'The braincase of Youngolepis, a Lower Devonian crossopterygian from Yunnan, south-western China' at Stockholm University. She was the first woman to become head of IVPP in 1983. Later in 2011 she also received an honorary degree from the University of Chicago for her many career achievements.

Zhang was born into a wealthy and highly educated family in Nanjing, Jiangsu, on 17 April 1936, while her ancestral home is in Shengzhou, Zhejiang. Her father graduated from the University of Chicago. As a child, she was determined to become a doctor. After the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out, her family fled to different cities to take refuge. After initially living in Beibei, Sichuan, they then moved to Jiangxi, and finally they settled in Nantong.