Morgan Tarpenning is a 2025 Fulbright Student Researcher at Universitas Hasanuddin, Makassar, South Sulawesi.

Fulbright U.S. Student Researcher Morgan Tarpenning, a graduate from Stanford with a background in Earth Systems and global health, hosted an environmental health exhibition (pameran kesehatan lingkungan) alongside free health checks in Makassar, South Sulawesi on May 10, 2026, as a part of her community engagement project.

In collaboration with Universitas Hasanuddin, the Kaluku Bodoa Puskesmas, and local government, this event featured educational booths from students and researchers to raise awareness of current climate and waste issues that impact community health in Tallo, one of the most densely populated regions in Makassar.

“It’s great to see kids and families coming and learning about all of our environmental risk factors and studies that we’ve been doing with them,” Morgan shared.

In a joint health study, Morgan helped to test drone mapping technology as a new approach to identify waste that harbors mosquitoes, which can spread diseases such as dengue or chikungunya.

Drones are deployed in dense urban regions in Tallo to identify waste otherwise undetected from ground level sight, such as discarded tires on rooftops. These tires provide an ideal breeding ground for mosquitoes as rainwater gets trapped there for larvae to thrive. With the help of local drone pilots from Hasanuddin University’s Department of Forestry, researchers gain a vantage point to spot their exact locations with high accuracy, including their shape and distribution. This information is then used as a preliminary finding for future studies.

Complementing this technical work, Morgan gave a presentation about her Fulbright research project: conducting qualitative interviews with Tallo mothers to understand their household waste management and perceptions of trash-related health risks. Apart from booths and presentations, a designated children’s learning spot and free health checks were provided for local Tallo participants.

The event also served as an important community data collection opportunity. Attendees participated in a storytelling booth where they shared their personal experiences with environmental health challenges in Tallo. Interactive polling activities, such as sticker voting on preferred trash reduction strategies and identifying the most impactful challenges of flooding, generated valuable community input. Community members engaged enthusiastically with the activities, asked questions about the research, and expressed excitement about being part of the work.

When asked about her reflections during the event and about her grant so far–”I’m grateful for the opportunity to do this project. I still have a few more months left, but this feels like a very good activity to reflect on how much I’ve learned … It’s hard to be a leader and also learn so much at the same time in a new country, but it’s also super rewarding when those things come together and I’m able to help put on something like this,” said Morgan.

Dr. Ansariadi, associate professor and Morgan’s research partner at Universitas Hasanuddin shared his comments, “Morgan helped us in designing and collaborating with our field team to make this community engagement project. We are also very grateful because this event has received full support from AMINEF. So far, there has been over a hundred people coming as well as about sixty children to visit our event this morning.”

This event is a part of a broader partnership between Stanford University and Universitas Hasanuddin (The Stanford-UNHAS Alliance for Planetary Health) to enhance knowledge on environmental health stressors in the Asia-Pacific. Morgan, supported through the Fulbright Program, is the current on-site researcher from Stanford.