Fourth-year Griffin Pitt grew up hearing the expression “Water always wins” from her grandmother, an insurance agent. Pitt grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina, where coal ash ponds threatened local drinking water. Her family is from and has since returned to Tarboro, a rural town in the eastern part of the state that was deeply impacted by flooding from Hurricane Matthew in 2016.

“Seeing how flooding and industrial waste compounded existing inequities taught me that water challenges are never just technical; they are intertwined with history, justice, and community resilience,” Pitt says.

Her upbringing inspired her to major in environmental studies and urban studies in the College of Arts & Sciences at Penn. Her academic experience has provided her with hands-on opportunities to explore issues of water access—whether that’s flooding or drought—back home and abroad. “Penn has helped me in so many ways apply what I learn in the classroom outside of it,” she says. Read more about Griffin in Penn Today.