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.

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.