Sansan Chien (1967-2011) spent most of her professional career teaching music theory and composition at the National Kaohsiung Normal University in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. She was instrumental in shaping the music curriculum there and was well-known as a dedicated and passionate theory and composition teacher as well as an imaginative composer. She made a profound impact on the many students she taught and mentored. Born in Changhua, Taiwan, she grew up in Taichung, but her family eventually moved to the United States, where she completed high school, college and graduate school. While growing up she excelled in music, art and mathematics, but eventually decided to study piano performance in college. Although she had studied music theory and basic composition techniques early in life, she only began focusing exclusively on composition during graduate school and eventually completed a DM degree in composition at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music in 1997. Her primary teacher at Indiana University was Frederick Fox, but she also studied composition with Eugene O’Brien and Claude Baker during her time there. Before then, she studied with Mark Phillips at Ohio University and with David Jex at the University of Toledo. After completing her doctorate, she and her husband, Paul SanGregory, moved to Taiwan where she accepted the full-time position at National Kaohsiung Normal University. She continued teaching there until succumbing to cancer in October of 2011.