Owen Jiang, a graduate of Lexington High School, has entered college this autumn as a Thoreau Scholar. The scholarship, named for the 19th-century naturalist and author Henry David Thoreau, is a prestigious award given annually to only eight Massachusetts high school seniors.

The son of Chrisie Ding and Jhon Jiang, Owen credits renowned atmospheric chemist Dr. Susan Solomon, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and her research on how chlorofluorocarbons damage the ozone layer, for his taking the words, “Climate change is the crisis made by your dad’s generation, but it’s your generation’s responsibility to fix” to heart.

Already interested in engineering and climate topics, Owen has focused on batteries as a way to help solve the climate crisis. Owen, however, is keen to avoid the issues that previous scientific innovations have created, such as those related to plastics.

“The last thing we’d want to witness is our climate mitigation efforts following the path of plastics: material science novelty turned ocean pollution headache,” he said. “I hope to devote myself to a new approach: devising creative engineering solutions that solve one problem without creating another.” Owen looks forward to continuing his work with electric vehicle batteries, ocean-atmospheric evolution and energy solutions in college.

This fall, Owen will be attending the University of California, Berkeley, where he will major in marine science. 

The Henry David Thoreau Scholarship is a four-year tuition scholarship. High school seniors awarded the Thoreau Scholarship can enroll in any college or university in the world while they major or minor in an environmentally-related field. Thoreau Scholars are encouraged to enroll in internships or study abroad to broaden their awareness and understanding of environmental issues.  

The Thoreau Foundation further assists its scholarship winners by identifying environmentally-related internships, offering internship stipends and providing networking opportunities. A sign of success of the Thoreau Foundation’s mission to foster environmental leadership is the support past scholarship winners provide to present scholarship winners.

To learn more about the Henry David Thoreau Foundation and the Thoreau Scholarship, please visit thoreauscholar.org. Scholarship applications open Oct. 15 at thoreauscholar.org with a February 1 deadline.

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