Student Spotlight: Sol Tran ’27 Puts Finance to Work for the Global Good

A family connection drew Sol Tran ’27, an international student from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, to apply to Whitman College. Her older sister, Ngan, graduated with a degree in Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology in 2021 and is now a mitochondrial biologist studying early-onset Parkinson’s disease.

After hearing about Whitman’s supportive faculty and strong community of students, Tran decided to follow in her sister’s footsteps. But her academic interests leaned toward finance and mathematics—particularly for social impact.

In high school, Tran managed the budget for several fundraising events. “That was how I learned that it’s really important to care for resources, and that I can actually learn how to use the resources to make the world a better place,” she says. 

Now, as a senior, Tran is pursuing Whitman’s Economics-Mathematics combined major and has found opportunities in and out of the classroom to grow her skills and put them to work in ways that help others—from Walla Walla to Nepal to Washington, D.C.

First-Year Friends to Global Changemakers

Tran met Sunita Nepali ’27, a Davis United World College Scholar and Economics and Politics double major from Nepal, in their First Year Seminar. They became close friends and bonded over their shared passion for creating change in the world.

“I was so happy that Whitman gave me her,” Tran says. “ I learned a lot about the community that she grew up in, what they have and the problems that they are continuing to face.” 

Tran and Nepali had many discussions in their dorm rooms about the lack of resources in Nepali’s hometown, including her school’s limited access to computers. One of those everyday conversations sparked an idea: a Projects for Peace grant proposal that would fund 20 computers for the Kusumakar Secondary School in Karaputar, Lamjung, Nepal. 

With help from Whitman faculty, Tran and Nepali submitted their proposal to Projects for Peace, and it was chosen to be funded with a $10,000 grant. While unforeseen circumstances kept Tran from traveling to Nepal, she still found a way to maximize her impact: She used her travel funds to purchase additional computers for the school’s lab.

Diving Into Data

Starting in her sophomore year, Tran worked as a Research Assistant for Ruoning Han, the Ralph C. Rittenour Jr. Assistant Professor of Economics, studying topics in micro­finance—a way of providing financial services, like small loans, to people who might otherwise be ignored by traditional banks. 

As part of this hands-on research, Tran worked closely with Han and gained experience working with real data and reviewing current literature on microfinance topics, including gender, government outreach and competition. 

“It was a great pleasure to work with her,” Han says. “She is exceptionally disciplined and detail-oriented, and she consistently delivered high-quality work.”

Tran was grateful for the opportunity. “I think every experience I’ve had at Whitman brings me a new thing that I’m not expecting to learn in my life or get as a typical university student,” she says. 

From Walla Walla to the Capital

For her Spring 2026 semester, Tran joined a Whitman off-campus program at American University in Washington, D.C., where she had the opportunity to sit in on Supreme Court hearings, network with leaders in finance and learn more about potential career paths. 

Between classes and an internship, she also took full advantage of the D.C. experience—visiting museums, thrift shopping with friends and taking in the capital’s famous cherry blossoms.

“Every event that I went to gave me completely different experiences,” she says. 

As part of her semester, Tran worked as an intern at Creative Investment Research, a consulting firm specializing in socially responsible investing and environmental, social and governance investing. While mainstream finance is focused on maximizing shareholder profit, Tran researched how to maximize social return—especially for women- and minority-owned businesses. 

“I learned a lot about sustainable finance and how it can be effective in investment and shareholder decisions,” Tran says.

As she looks toward a possible career in sustainable finance or nonprofit work, she’s thankful for this valuable experience in D.C.  

And more than that, Tran is grateful that she chose Whitman. 

“I think everyone at Whitman has a different story and different experiences,” she says. Her sister’s path and her own have been different in ways she couldn’t have imagined—but the incredible support and opportunities she’s found here have lived up to expectations. 

“That’s one thing that almost every Whitman student has experienced and loves about Whitman—and me too.”