Haven Tan is an incoming Autumn 2024 Morrill Scholar from Thousand Oaks, California. As a student at Oaks Christian School, Tan was involved in the golf team, orchestra, and mental health club. At The Ohio State University, Tan plans to major in civil engineering and minor in humanitarian engineering as a member of the Humanitarian Engineering Scholars Program.
“My sophomore year, I took an environmental engineering class at my school, and we worked with an organization called Global Brigades. We helped design a water system for a village in Honduras,” Tan commented. “We met on Zoom with the community, and I was able to hear everybody’s stories and see the impact I was making, and I was like, ‘Whatever this is, I want to do this.’”
Tan has already started her humanitarian engineering career by founding CAD 4 Clean Water, an organization that teaches girls in lower-income areas how to use AutoCAD software to design jewelry, which is then sold to pay for clean water systems in Latin America. Tan hopes the Morrill Scholars Program will give her opportunities to engage in similar projects.
“I’m super excited about the community that I’m automatically going to be in when I get there,” Tan said. “I think MSP is going to really help me grow in the things I’m passionate about, like social justice, service, and inclusivity.”