Amy Tidwell was running a day care center when her husband suggested she consider becoming an engineer.

"I said, 'Engineering, are you crazy?' But I thought, OK, I'll fail miserably and I can go back to teaching, which is what I'm really good at."

To her surprise, Tidwell found that she liked understanding how things work. After finishing a civil engineering degree at UAF summa cum laude and a Ph.D. at Georgia Tech, she returned to Fairbanks as an International Polar Year postdoctoral fellow.

"IPY is a nice opportunity for folks in the Arctic," she says. "It brings us together to say 'OK, during this time we're going to gather the best scientists and we're going to jump-start them on dealing with these issues.'"

"I was very excited about coming back because it feels like home," Tidwell notes. "Alaska in general, but Fairbanks for sure."

Her passion for community spills over into her research investigating the effects of climate change on water resources in the Arctic.

"In Alaska, we have some unique water resource challenges and vulnerabilities that differ from the Lower 48, but the issue is the same: We need to carefully plan and manage the resource for the wellbeing of our communities."