Rosemary Chai graduated with a PhD in Intercultural Communication from the University of New Mexico, and an MA degree in Communication from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She received her BSc degree in Human Resource Development from Brigham Young University, Hawaii.

She has lived and worked in different places and taught at the University of New Mexico, Nanyang Technological University, National University of Singapore, Singapore Institute of Technology including American offshore universities in Hong Kong, China and China.