MESM 2026
Pronouns: she/her
Bio
Tina Tran graduated from San Diego State University (SDSU) in 2024 with a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Sciences and a double minor in Leadership and Sustainability. Growing up in San Diego, she joined beach clean ups and river restoration events, and noticed significant amounts of plastic pollution. This sparked her interest in the effects of pollution on people and ecosystems in the rivers, beaches, and estuaries. During three years of her undergraduate degree, she researched contaminants that leached from microfibers (plastic <10 μm diameter) using nontargeted analysis (NTA), under the supervision of Dr. Eunha Hoh. NTA is a process to identify unknown chemical constituents in a sample. She also contributed to projects identifying persistent organic contaminants in marine life.
Beyond research, Tina is passionate about food systems and waste management. She volunteered with SanDiego350's Food and Soil team, where she created educational tool kits to teach others about composting, carbon farming, and plant-based recipes. At Bren, Tina is specializing in Pollution Prevention and Remediation in hopes of pursuing a career to develop solutions that prevent contaminants from entering watersheds, and further harming the health of biota.