Meet Merry Seng Maran: Stanford’s ‘first Kachin-Burmese American’ graduate

“I’ll be the first Kachin-Burmese American to graduate from Stanford,” Merry (M) Seng Maran ’25 M.A. ’25 said. “This moment is historic, not only for me but also for my community.”

Seng Maran graduated with a major in political science and a masters degree in sociology.

She has questioned identity and the idea of home for all of her life. “I’m used to being the first Kachin-Burmese student in almost every setting that I go to,” she said. 

“One: I’m mixed,” she said. Seng Maran’s father, who passed away when she was young, was Kachin, an ethnic group living in northeast Myanmar. Her mother is Burmese.

“Two: I’ve moved around.” Seng Maran was born in Myanmar, where she lived with her mother until age 5. The pair then moved to Malaysia, where they waited five years for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to determine their refugee status.

“Three: I got stuck in Tennessee with a bunch of white people,” she concluded. After the UNHCR officially deemed them refugees, Seng Maran and her mother moved to their stateside home of Tennessee.

From her roots in Myanmar — where the world’s longest civil war has been ongoing since 1948  — Seng Maran has always been motivated to pursue education.

“Airstrikes are happening as we speak right now,” she said. “Schools have been bombed, churches shelled, children have died in classrooms even a few days ago. Entire families are living in displacement camps with no electricity, no health care and no consistent education.”

After watching her mother sacrifice opportunities in order for her to have a shot at education, Seng Maran said that applying to Stanford was an “act of resistance.”

“Coming to Stanford wasn’t just about ambition,” she said, “It was about reclaiming what war tried to steal, reclaiming a future that was never promised to me… I felt like I needed to seize all the opportunities that were in front of me because I’m doing it for not just me and my family, but for a whole nation.”

Attending Stanford as a first-generation student, Seng Maran said she wrestled with imposter syndrome, cultural differences and the weight of representing her whole country.

While on campus, however, she found spaces not just to learn, but to “heal, question and serve,” she said, studying political science to understand how power and systems shape individuals’ lives “with [her] people in mind.”

Throughout her four years, Seng Maran has also found friends, mentors and professors who reminded her that she belonged.

Khuyen Nguyen ’25 described Seng Maran’s “deep interest in humanitarian issues and uplifting those around her,” in an email to The Daily.

“It is inspiring to see how much she gives to her work and to the people around her,” Sydney Helfand ’25 added.

To Jinpa Sangmo ’25, Seng Maran is “someone who always looks to learn more from life but also shows up for her loved ones… I’ve seen her get stronger in the four years, continuing to stand for what she believes in and her community,” Sangmo wrote.

In the classroom, Jennifer Johnson, Seng Maran’s instructor for PWR 2: “Language, Identity and Power,” wrote to The Daily that Seng Maran’s trilingualism in English, Burmese and Jinghpaw — an ethnic Kachin dialect — allows her to “center overlooked voices and offer powerful insights on language, identity, and power,” making her “a force in both the classroom and the community.”

Similarly, Jared Furuta M.A. ’20 Ph.D. ’20, who taught Seng Maran in SOC 160: “Formal Organizations” and SOC 133D: “Globalization and Social Change,” described how Seng Maran “engages with the world in a genuine and enthusiastic way,” in an email to The Daily. He referenced a time that Seng Maran wrote about student life through organizational theory and analyzed activism in Myanmar through social movement theories.

Senior Associate Dean of Students Darrell Green — who met Seng Maran while she was taking photos for the University social media at a football game — once spoke to Seng Maran about his faith, and she invited him to her church where she introduced him to many of it’s members.

“You just don’t meet these types of people too often,” he told The Daily.

During her senior year, Seng Maran was also a resident assistant (RA) in Arroyo.

Jill Patton ’03 M.A. ’04, one of Arroyo’s resident fellows, praised Seng Maran’s thoughtfulness in the dorm, where Seng Maran wrote notes and holiday cards to dorm residents. 

Ashley Harden, who worked closely with Seng Maran this past year as the Resident Director for neighborhood Sequoia, said: “She’s such a resilient young woman. She has been through so much. She’s so family oriented and she cares so much about doing well for her family,” Harden said.

After four years, “Stanford became a place where I not only learned about power and policy, but also about purpose,” Seng Maran said. “I’m glad I’m leaving knowing I have something to give. I’m walking away from Stanford not just with a degree but with a mission.”

After concluding her Stanford career with a senior capstone on educational recovery and authoritarian regimes post-natural disasters, Seng Maran graduated last Sunday on Father’s Day without the father she lost — but with a mother who filled both roles. “This day is a reminder of all that’s been lost — and all that’s been overcome,” she said.

Following graduation, she booked a one-way ticket to Kenya to work at a school as an education strategist for the summer. Seng Maran hasn’t returned to Myanmar since she first left, and with the recent travel ban to Myanmar and other countries by President Donald Trump, the closest opportunity for her is Kenya, she said.

“This degree is for the kids back home who had to drop out of the school to work to support their families; for the youth in refugee camps who are told that education is a luxury and not a right,” Seng Maran said.

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