Scientific research, based on a Western worldview, is thought of as objective and neutral. Researchers choose protocols they believe to be objective, and funders reward them with grants. However, in my more than 30 years of experience working in higher education, I have listened to researchers talk about choosing protocols that will likely yield the results they are seeking. Is that objectivity?

You have classes, labs, homework, sports, socializing, volunteering — maybe even a job. With all that, there’s not much time for feeling listless and unmotivated, and definitely no time for getting sick. Because high school and college students have to assume more responsibility for their own schedules and personal choices, it’s important to know which of those options are most likely to pay off in a more wide awake, stronger, and healthier you. Here are some you can count on.

Though he had no idea of it at the time, Dylan Moriarty started training for his current job at New Mexico–based Sandia National Laboratories when he was a young boy. Moriarty grew up in rural Fort Defiance, Ariz., on the Navajo Nation.

Dr. Otakuye Conroy-Ben’s environmental consciousness was awakened at a very young age. Growing up in Porcupine, S.D., on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, she could literally taste and smell the impacts people were — or were not — making on the natural world around her.

Sheila Lopez still vividly recalls the first time she fully shared her life story in front of an audience. A member of the Navajo tribe, Lopez was the first in her family to attend college. While an undergraduate pursuing a degree in electrical engineering at Northern Arizona University, Lopez worked in the school’s multicultural engineering program office.

Yona Wade is not the type of person who waits for things to happen. It’s an impulse he has been cultivating since he was very young. “As a kid, I always was the one who wanted to be in charge and run the show and make whatever I needed to happen actually happen,” he says. “I never had time to wait for others.”

For Jacob Calderone, setting goals and following through on them has always been second nature. “I think that comes from my mother,” he says. “My mother uses her dedication and hard work to accomplish goals in her life. Her success motivates me to work as hard as I can for what I want.”

Native Americans engaged in meaningful work that benefits Indigenous people and communities are eligible for the Luce Indigenous Knowledge Fellowship. In partnership with the Henry Luce Foundation, the First Nations Development Institute is awarding its first 10 fellowships in January 2020.

Growing up on the Navajo Nation, it’s common to know someone without access to electricity. For me, this includes my great-grandmother, who lives in Black Mesa, Arizona. I grew up in Window Rock, the capital of the Navajo Nation. So as a child, I would often wonder why we had electricity and she didn’t. These types of questions led me to experiment with small circuits and electronics. From then on, I’ve had an interest in electronics and learning how things work — and finding their application to real-world problems. 

I distinctly remember growing up without ever seeing a Native dentist, doctor, or athlete. As a result, I never pictured myself growing into one of those roles. But somewhere along the way, I realized that I could do it. Now, in my senior year at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD), I’m working on a dual degree in chemistry and American Indian studies — on my way to becoming the person I never saw: a Native American dentist.