For Dr. Nidhi Santen, science has always been a tool for protecting the thing she loves most: nature.

A born explorer, she spent her childhood running through the trees and exploring the woods behind her house with her brother and sister. She was a quiet kid who loved to draw and was always looking for more excuses to play outside, even became a (self-declared) honorary member of her brother’s Boy Scouts troop, just so she could tag along on their outdoor adventures. Later, she ran track, played lacrosse, and jumped at every opportunity to go hiking, camping, and rock-climbing with friends.

In college, she studied geography and learned more about resources, communities, and the environment. But it wasn’t until she took a class on environmental ethics that her mission became clear. Her teacher inspired her to move to DC, where she spent her nights working as a waitress and her days learning everything she could about how the government passes laws and makes policy decisions related to the environment.

She realized that our current behaviors could be putting our planet at risk. She became fascinated with the idea of “clean energy”, which basically means finding ways to power our lives in the most sustainable and responsible ways possible. The only problem? Her geography degree hadn’t provided enough of the math and science skills she needed to do the work well.

So, she went back to school.

She enrolled in community college through the summers and spent the rest of the year working and saving her money. Slowly, she filled in the gaps in her knowledge. She did a Masters in Environmental Policy to learn more about how laws are made, and a Masters in Environmental Science to learn more about how air pollution released from power plants and other man-made processes affects the environment. She then went on to do a PhD in Engineering Systems to learn more about how to design an environmentally- and economically-sustainable system for producing and using electricity.

Her life may not have followed a neat and traditional path, but if it had, she may not have ended up with the diverse skills and dispositions that she needed to serve her purpose well. At each step, she looked for what she didn’t yet know, and patiently built the skills and training necessary to become the formidable ally that nature needs.

Today, she works collaboratively, creatively, and strategically to help design a future where we’re able to get the energy that we need to power our homes, our work, and our play, while making sure that nature gets the protections it needs to preserve our air, our water, and our earth.

After all, that’s the only way to ensure that kids everywhere can keep running through the trees behind their houses for generations to come.