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Water wise

Tina Jin, 14, endeavors to help everyone, everywhere access clean, drinkable water

By Annalisa Alpaugh

Senior Manager, Corporate Social Responsibility

Global Communications

Tina Jin has always felt a pull to water.

At age three while on a family cruise vacation, she made repeated attempts to jump into the Lido Deck pool without knowing how to swim. Thankfully, her mother stayed close to keep her safe.

“My mom told me that I really liked the water, so I kept going in there,” Tina says.

She started swim lessons soon after, turning competitive by age eight and becoming a decorated regional finalist and champion.

“Swimming is a good way to relax my brain,” says the 14-year-old Bay Area native with her signature, ear-to-ear smile. “Sometimes it’s a break from schoolwork and academics and extracurriculars. Academics, extracurriculars is a break from swimming. Both can be fun and stressful at the same time. I like it a lot and I put a lot of effort into it.”

Competitive swimming has also taught her to be determined and goal-oriented, which she applies to her other activities. Those other activities include science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), for which Tina has also garnered many accolades, including the top award at the 2024 Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge (Thermo Fisher JIC), a program of Society for Science and the premier U.S. STEM competition for middle schoolers that reaches 65,000 students annually.

 

Tina pursues STEM with the same relentless curiosity that first drew her to water on the cruise ship.

 

“Going in the water without knowing how to swim … I just like to see what’s out there. STEM is a really good way to do that. I like to see how things work,” Tina says. “Whenever I see a problem, I immediately think of potential solutions to it. STEM is about finding solutions, thinking about it from a different perspective.”

 

Tina credits her math and science teachers with nurturing her love for problem-solving by exploring beyond the textbook and bringing concepts to life through creative hands-on activities.

 

“Tina is a dedicated student with an excellent work ethic and an unwavering enthusiasm for STEM,” says Vandana Kadam, Middle School Mathematics Department Chair, The Harker School. “She demonstrates a unique ability to approach complex challenges methodically, often finding innovative solutions.”

Nearly two years ago, Tina was once again pulled toward water in a new and unexpected way—one that enlisted her passions for research, engineering, problem solving, and helping others.

She was watching the evening news when she saw a story that featured young children in remote regions who had no choice but to drink contaminated water. She learned that a third of the world’s population lacks access to potable water, and that unsafe drinking water kills more people globally each year than natural disasters and conflicts combined.

“I wanted to help these people because I believe clean water is a human right,” Tina says.

This belief has been shared by the United Nations General Assembly since 2010 and was codified as Sustainable Development Goal 6 in 2015. Despite nearly a decade of concerted global effort, the water crisis is worsening.

The latest summary progress report on SDG 6 cautions that factors like climate change, global conflicts and inconsistent monitoring could put nearly 5 billion lives—60 percent of today’s global population—at risk by 2030. “We must face the harsh truth that our advancements [to achieve all eight targets of SDG 6] are falling short,” the authors write.

Several common filtration technologies have been implemented globally to help move SDG 6 forward, but none has prevailed at scale.

 

Methods like reverse osmosis, activated carbon filtration, ultraviolet (UV) purification and chlorine treatment are either prohibitively expensive, too complex and resource-intensive to install and maintain in developing communities, or pose new risks (like chemical byproducts) to humans and the environment.

 

After researching these methods, Tina wondered if she could use her STEM acumen to invent an effective, low-cost filter sourced exclusively from natural, household materials that anyone could operate anywhere.

 

She relied on familiar mantras to guide her thinking: nobody can do everything, but everyone can do something; and just start small.

 

“It’s really motivating and positive in a realistic way,” she says. “And I like to give the advice of starting small because it seems approachable. Even starting hyper local makes a difference in your community and if you see that, you can continue to expand.”

 

Tina got her first idea for a solution at the dinner table after finishing her meal. She noticed that the porous beef bone tissue—called trabecular bone—closely resembled a polymer membrane, the hero of pressure-driven water filtration. When used for filtration, the polymer membrane’s microscopic pores trap impurities that are larger than them, such as bacteria, dirt and chemicals, while letting smaller water molecules flow freely.

 

In addition to its ideal structure, bone waste satisfied Tina’s search for natural materials. Approximately 130 billion kilograms (286 million pounds) of bone waste is produced around the world each year, so a filter powered by that material would carry a much smaller footprint than a UV purification system, for example.

 

Tina spent the next several months developing, testing and refining her method and prototype using animal bone waste, along with household materials like cloth, rubber bands and drinking cups. 

“What sets Tina apart from her peers is her persistence,” Vandana says. “She does not give up when faced with obstacles, instead embraces the challenge, and pushes forward to find a solution.”

Eventually, Tina’s filter successfully removed approximately 90 percent of E. coli bacteria and decreased turbidity (i.e., increased clarity) by 99 percent, as verified by a local water company.

“As a society, ensuring access to clean and safe drinking water is one of our most critical responsibilities,” said Robert Robinson, president, Laboratory Equipment, Thermo Fisher Scientific.

“Tina’s creative and natural approach to water filtration is a shining example of how innovative thinking can address critical global challenges.”

After entering her local science fair in early 2024, Tina’s water filtration system was selected for the Synopsys Silicon Valley Science and Technology Championship, where she earned first place in the Physical Science and Engineering category.

 

The recognition made her eligible for the Thermo Fisher JIC, which she entered and won in October after competing against thousands of her peers from across the country.

Quotation marks
“As a society, ensuring access to clean and safe drinking water is one of our most critical responsibilities. Tina’s creative and natural approach to water filtration is a shining example of how innovative thinking can address critical global challenges.”
Robert Robinson
President, Laboratory Equipment
Thermo Fisher Scientific

The Thermo Fisher Scientific ASCEND (Aspiring Scientists Cultivating Exciting New Discoveries) Award Tina received during the event’s Finals Week in Washington, D.C. included a $25,000 prize.

 

“The moment before they announced my name, there was this dramatic pause for what seemed like an eternity. Nobody dared to even breathe,” Tina shared on The Kelly Clarkson Show in January. “Then when I heard my name, I was really shocked at first, because I just wanted to do something to help other people and I didn’t know it would get to where it is now.”

 

“Looking back, it’s crazy to think I just used what I have [around the house] to make what I did,” she says.

 

"Tina likes to do research and she works hard to help other people and make the world a better place,” says Hongjie Mary Ma, Tina’s mom. “I'm very proud of her.”

 

Moving forward, Tina plans to refine her prototype and experiment with bone waste from different sources (so far, she’s used cow and lamb and is now exploring pig). She also hopes to learn more about organizations focused on addressing the global water crisis in developing communities.

 

“One of the biggest goals of my research is to go into these under-resourced areas and teach people how to use my method and actually see people filtering water,” Tina says.

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