Dr. Chang serves as Director of the Water Resources Center (WRC) at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Institute for Water Resources (IWR) in Alexandria, VA. The Center is a 60-person organization that has been a proven leader in forward thinking on water resources issues, economics analyses, social sciences, natural resource management, water supply, flood risk management, and policy research since 1969. WRC collaborates with USACE HQ, Major Subordinate Commands (MSCs), Districts, fellow IWR Centers, and national and international governmental and non-government partners. The Center develops and applies strategic, operational, and tactical solutions to address the Nation’s water resource management challenges, with a tradition of bringing “state-of-the-art to state-of-the-practice” practical solutions for implementation.
Dr. Chang began his career as a research specialist in 2000 at Michigan State University, where he supported USACE as an onsite visiting scholar. He became a full-time USACE employee at the Institute for Water Resources in 2009, working as a senior economist, program manager, and supervisor. In 2022, Dr. Chang transitioned to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services as a Supervisory Economist and Branch Chief. He returned to USACE IWR in 2024 to take on the role of WRC Director.
Throughout his career, Dr. Chang has led several significant economics-based studies. He was the lead developer of the Regional Economics Assessment Model (RECONS), a tool designed to estimate the regional economic benefits of USACE projects. Initially created to support the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), RECONS remains as the agency’s certified regional economic development (RED) model and was recently used to determine the regional economic benefits of USACE projects under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL). Dr. Chang also served as the Program Manager for the USACE Value to the Nation program, which documented and communicated the value of the Corps of Engineers Civil Works Program, developed performance based budgeting measurement tools to prioritize roughly $400 million annual budget for the Corps’ recreation and environmental stewardship programs, and led a study requested by the International Joint Commission to estimate the impact of the closure of the St. Lawrence Seaway to commercial navigation in 2020.
Dr. Chang holds a Bachelor’s degree in Atmospheric Sciences from National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, a Master’s degree in Leisure Studies from the University of Iowa, and a Doctorate in Park, Recreation, and Tourism Resources with an emphasis on Economic Impact Analysis from Michigan State University.