Alex Dehgan takes conservation to the extremes. After doing his PhD work studying lemurs in Madagascar, Dehgan has brought his mission of ending human-induced extinction to a long list of precarious and unlikely places, including a heroic effort of national park creation in post-war Afghanistan. His current focus is bridging the gap between conservation and technology.

The Wall Street Journal dubbed Selbe the “Rocket-Scientists Environmentalist” before anyone was talking about conservation technology. Back then, he was busy inventing ways to put his engineering skills to work solving big problems facing the natural world. His prototyping and invention created a new career for Selbe and entire new field for ambitious engineers and scientists.