In the 1890s, his paternal great-great grandfather, Wah Jean Lamb, was selected by missionaries in Canton, China, to come to USC to study medicine. Wah Jean earned his medical degree in 1898, and his children, Paul, Faith and John Lamb, attended USC in the 1930s as premed students.

Robert's grandfather, James Alfred Chung, who grew up near the campus, established his own ties to the Trojan Family at an early age, shagging footballs as a preadolescent for the USC football team when it practiced in Bovard Field. He earned the autographs of Howard Jones and John Ferraro for his trouble, then went on to enroll at the university and receive a B.A. in 1949 and an M.D. in 1957. Robert's father, Brian Carroll Chung, earned his B.S. in 1972 and did his residency in oral surgery at USC in 1979, then earned his M.D. from USC in 1981. Robert's cousins, Winnie Nishimini and Terrence Ah-Tye, received degrees in dental hygiene and pharmacy, respectively, in the early 1970s. The only family member to shun a health care-related field altogether was Robert's great-uncle, Richard Lane Tom, who studied in the School of Architecture in the 1950s.

Robert also boasts two generations of Trojans on his mother's side. Although his mother, Suzann Bailey Chung, did not attend the university herself, she grew up in a household steeped in USC traditions. Her father, Phillip Bailey, took advantage of the GI Bill to earn a B.S. in civil engineering and later joined the Trojan Club and became a donor to the School of Engineering.

Her two sisters, Phyllis Bailey Knutson and Joann Bailey Goltermann, earned USC business degrees in the 1970s. The university also facilitated matchmaking; both sisters met their future husbands on campus, and Robert's father, Brian, first proposed to Suzann at USC.

My sister Joann and her husband accidentally set their wedding date to coincide with the USC-UCLA game, Suzann Chung recalls. We got through the ceremony, but we took turns going out to the parking lot and listening to the game so we could let everyone inside know what was going on.

With such a strong heritage, Robert, not surprisingly, plans to draw from the academic traditions on both sides of his family and go into bioengineering. And he will probably not be the last member of the Chung family to join the Trojan Family. His younger brother, Tommy, has also set his sights on USC, and in a few years, the cycle of achievement will most likely begin all over again.