Grateful for Her Princeton Education, Elaine Chan ’73 Pays It Forward with Opportunities for Future Tigers
Elaine Chan ’73, sporting a chef’s white toque, is joyfully whipping up a recipe for Estuary Soup. “Winds! Tides! Waves!” she exclaims, using a wooden spoon to stir up a concoction of salt water, fresh water and “billions” of phytoplankton (for which she’s substituted flour) in an oversized bowl. She flutters a fan in her other hand, creating a brisk breeze.
It seems a logical progression for Chan, who majored in biology at Princeton and wrote a senior thesis on pollution in the marine food chain,cat to be enjoying some of her retirement time volunteering at a nonprofit organization that works to create a healthy marine environment through education, science and stewardship.
The “Estuary Soup” educational video she created for kids stuck at home during the pandemic is a Julia Child-inspired delight filled with props that range from barnacles to a plush shark. But it’s her explanations about the science of what happens when rivers meet the ocean that make Chan’s presentation as fascinating to second-graders as it is to adults. (Did you know that sea stars use their feet to pry open shells and then turn their stomachs inside out to eat the clams that are inside?)
The classes she regularly teaches to all ages at Sound Water Stewards in Washington State’s Island County, a place she now calls home, are just the tip of the eelgrass when it comes to Chan’s lifetime commitment to paying forward the gift of her own education. Chan credits Princeton with giving her a voice and the opportunities to follow her dreams. “The gift of a Princeton education is the gift that keeps on giving,” she said, “and it gives to future generations.”
Her marine motivation began on the deck of a dive boat, off the coast of Florida.
Finding Her Voice at Princeton, Then Using It
As a young girl in Miami, Chan was encouraged by her parents to study and work hard. “My mother was a college graduate in China, which was kind of unusual for a woman at her time,” said Chan, “but my father, I don’t think he ever finished high school because his father passed away and the family was split up. For him, my education and that of my sibling were really important because he realized what an advantage it gives people.”
Chan’s father also encouraged her to explore and develop interests outside of school. His day job was in television sales and repairs. “My job helping my dad on land was to crawl into small spaces and climb up on ladders,” Chan said.
But he also had a boat and loved taking groups out to dive on weekends. Chan went along for the rides. “He was a spear fisher and diver, but he was also interested in innovation in ocean things and fisheries. He said, ‘We can’t just shoot all the fish and take all the fish from the ocean. We’ll have to do aquaculture.’”
Chan remembered his words when her father passed away after her sophomore year at Princeton. She wanted to do something to make his dream a reality. She majored in biology, and during the summers she worked in marine labs, opportunities that she credits to the University. “Princeton paid my employers so that I could do that,” she said.
From the start, Chan was grateful for the financial support she received from the University, including scholarships and work-study opportunities. That gratitude increased when her family found itself in their new financial situation. Chan went to the financial aid office for help. “I said, ‘I don’t know how I can pay for any portion of my education because my mother doesn’t have an income and my father was not well insured,’” she remembers saying. “And Princeton came through.”
After Princeton, Chan went to graduate school at the University of Miami, studying fisheries and mariculture farming and earning a master’s degree in 1976. Princeton, she said, had already made one of her life goals possible: “I felt like I had fulfilled my father’s dream.”
Soon, her life took another turn. While working on her Ph.D. in marine environmental science, Chan received an invitation to present a paper in Washington, D.C., on research she’d done on recovery from an accidental oil spill in a tropical environment.
Her presentation led to a job offer. She took a leave of absence from the Ph.D. program and went to D.C. to work for Environmental Data Services in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). “And within that first week, I had an interesting opportunity.”
Chan attended a talk about how NOAA was planning to create an oil spill in Alaska so they could study it, as very little was then known about how oil behaved in open water. Chan stuck her hand in the air when they asked for questions. “Have you ever thought about studying other people’s oil spills where you don’t have to spill the oil?” she said.
“Princeton taught me to speak up when I have an idea or thought; it gave me a voice.”
Her question would lead to the launch of the NOAA-US Coast Guard Spilled Oil Research team. In December 1976, she and her new team flew to Massachusetts when the Argo Merchant oil tanker ran aground on Nantucket Shoals, creating what was then the worst oil spill in U.S. history. The team served as scientific adviser to the Coast Guard; it would eventually evolve into NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration, which provides scientific expertise in oceanography, biology, chemistry and geology in the event of oil spills and other emergencies in coastal areas.
It was exciting field work for Chan: “Everybody was equipped with equipment that we all developed from scratch about how to study an oil spill from the air.”
Chan soon saw another opportunity as she worked on valuations of natural resources. Bills were being introduced in Congress to create a “Superfund” to finance emergency responses and environmental cleanups. The money would come through taxes on crude oil and other chemicals as well as environmental taxes on corporations. The Justice Department needed a way to assess the value of damaged natural resources.
“I was helping to value things, like ‘What is an endangered whistling swan worth?’” Chan said. She also had a thought: “When this legislation passed, they were going to need scientist-lawyers to enforce it. So I applied to law school.”
Chan studied environmental law at Georgetown University from 1977 to 1981, taking classes at night while working as a scientist by day. It was the beginning of a long and successful career as an attorney, often working at the intersection of environmental science and the growing field of environmental law. She served as counsel for a number of U.S. government agencies over her decades-long career, including the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Citizenship and Immigration Service.
She continued to use the voice she’d found at Princeton. And along the way, Chan kept giving back to Princeton.
Building Her Tiger Legacy
“I give to Princeton because I believe that the opportunity I had should be available to others,” says Chan.
Chan has kept close connections to Princeton. She’s contributed to Annual Giving since her graduation and has interviewed prospective students for her local Alumni Schools Committee. She also comes back to campus almost every year for Reunions. “I think I’ve only missed five or six in the 51 years since I graduated,” she said. She’s also active in the Asian American Alumni Association of Princeton.
When her mother passed away and Chan received an inheritance, she thought of Princeton. She saw an opportunity to create a significant legacy that would benefit future Tigers by providing seed money for a program in Asian American Studies. It was also a way to honor her parents and their commitment to education. She became a member of the 1746 Society by creating a charitable remainder unitrust that would benefit the University’s Asian American Studies program.
The birth and growth of the Asian American studies program had been a decades-long effort. According to Princetoniana Museum documents, the University’s first Asian American history seminar was taught in 1978. In 1995, students held a sit-in at Nassau Hall advocating for a center for ethnic studies and for Asian American studies and Latino studies. In 2013, the Asian Studies Endowment Fund was created and in 2018, Asian American Studies became a certificate program in American Studies. In 2021, the Effron Center for the Study of America was launched, building upon the American Studies Program, and in 2023, Asian American Studies became a minor.
“The ability to create a legacy, particularly for the Asian American alumni, I felt very strongly about that,” Chan said. “Asian Americans have a very unique story about inclusion and discrimination and other things that are generally hidden in history. They’re not things spoken about until very recently.”
Giving a gift to support the Asian American Studies program tied together Chan’s love for family, education and specifically, Princeton.
Chan said she gives to Princeton because she knows “it will turn into academic success, and it will influence future generations. Princeton is very efficient and effective at making things happen. My husband went to Columbia and he gives money to Columbia, but he’s so impressed with the way Princeton responded to the seed money and actually established a whole program that he’s planning to give some of his legacy to Princeton too.”
Meanwhile, Chan continues to use her voice wherever she can to promote the value of all education, which her parents held so dear. Some days she does it in her role as the “Estuary Soup Lady,” teaching kids about the food chain and marine flora and fauna. Back when her two sons were in elementary school, she volunteered to give talks on science, especially hoping to reach girls at a time when they might not otherwise be encouraged to be interested in science and math.
It’s a part of her Princeton legacy that she’s particularly proud of: using her voice to inspire future generations to pick up the mantle of scientific research. Her eldest son, now an adult, discovered that two of the girls in an elementary school class she’d spoken to had become marine biologists because they had been inspired by Chan.
“And they’re two Ph.D.s,” Chan said, grinning. “So I’ve replaced myself as a scientist when I left to be a lawyer. I accomplished another life goal.”
Catherine Mallette ’84