Maya Ying Lin is an American architect, designer and sculptor. Born in Athens, Ohio to Chinese immigrants, she attended Yale University to study architecture. In 1981, while still an undergraduate at Yale she achieved national recognition when she won a national design competition for the planned Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. The memorial was designed in the minimalist architectural style, and it attracted controversy upon its release but went onto become influential. Lin has since designed numerous memorials, public and private buildings, landscapes, and sculptures. In 1989, she designed the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama. She has an older brother, the poet Tan Lin.

Ohio University is a public research university in Athens, Ohio, United States. The first university chartered by an Act of Congress and the first to be chartered in Ohio, the university was chartered in 1787 by the Congress of the Confederation and subsequently approved for the territory in 1802 and state in 1804, opening for students in 1809.