Chelsea Benally
Navajo Indian Reservation / Flagstaff, Arizona
Edmonton, Alberta
Education: Engineering undergraduate and Master's degrees - University of Arizona; Environmental engineering PhD student, University of Alberta
About her journey: "We have a lot of reverence and respect for Mother Earth and all her creatures, and knowing that I could use my education in order to help fix problems that people have caused was really important to me.
"I had a path and networks. And knowing other people and meeting people at conferences who were going to Stanford and MIT and knowing that they come from similar cultures as me, or that they didn't go to the best schools growing up-but here they are-they're able to do t. It motivates you."