Hewan Demissie Degu is an ardent advocate for women and girls, encouraging female students in her university to pursue studies in science. Although she was raised in a family that promoted gender equality, she realized that was not the case everywhere in Ethiopia. “Girls were not recognized in Gondar, where I used to work; they were forced into early marriage and do not see any value in education,” she says. “I could not understand that. I seemed to be the only one fighting this unwritten law, and I was considered strange.”