Christine Keung - a Chinese immigrant to the US who returned to her ancestral home of Shaanxi Province to work with doctors and industry to reduce water and soil pollution and help local rural women to become more independent.

Born on 5 April 1992, Keung’s earliest years were spent in Shanghai and Hong Kong, but she was educated in the US after emigrating with her parents at the age of four. She was the first person in her family to graduate from university. She went on to win a National Science Foundation research grant at age 19, and, in 2014, was admitted to Harvard Business School under its high-potential student programme.

Keung made her first trip to Shaanxi Province, in Northwest China, in 2012, where she witnessed environmental pollution. She noticed, firsthand, haphazard dumping of used medical supplies and pesticides in the largest tributary of the Yellow River.
In 2014, a Fulbright scholarship gave Keung the opportunity to visit China for 10 months, where she became aware of the extent of China’s rural pollution and the contributing factors. She decided to focus her research in China around this issue.
Keung and her team are providing training for women’s groups on safe methods of recycling agricultural, chemical and medical wastes, implementing a pilot programme that tracks waste from points of purchase to storage, usage and disposal. Village doctors and farm suppliers will also receive training on recycling and treatment of waste and will develop a waste inventory system that they will pilot themselves.

2017 - 2017 Harvard University

2010 - 2014 Wellesley College