She’s just 28, yet so much has happened in the last dozen years that Marrissa Hellesen’s life reads more like a suspense novel. Hellesen’s story includes her leaving school in the eighth grade, earning a GED when homeschooling didn’t work out, and then nearly failing in college. The main theme in her life, though, is perseverance. She refused to give up, and she paid attention to the lessons life was teaching her along the way.

Long considered the first female Native American archaeologist, Bertha Parker Pallan Cody led an intriguing life. She was born in 1907 to Seneca folklorist, archaeologist, musicologist, and historian Arthur Parker and Abenaki actress Beulah Tahamont. She was also the great niece of Ely S. Parker, engineer, attorney, and the first Native American commissioner of Indian affairs (and inspiration for the highest AISES award).

Sofia Panarella has lived in many places, from Oregon to Montana to Rhode Island, but regardless of where she lives, she is, and always will be, a Native Hawai’ian. Moving from place to place opened Panarella’s eyes to the differences in living conditions and services available to individuals across the United States. It was these differences that pushed her to pursue a dream she didn’t even realize she had: to obtain a degree in economics and public health in order to make real change for real people, wherever she may be.

Growing up on the Wind River Reservation in Fort Washakie, Wyo., Jason Baldes got an early start in wilderness exploration. As a child he would traverse the backcountry of the reservation on horseback with his father. Together they visited over 200 lakes in the Wind River Wilderness, the first nationally protected wilderness area in the United States.