Jennifer Doudna's journey from student to scientist and mentor

Mauna Loa, Earth’s largest active volcano, slopes gently upward toward the sky, standing as the backdrop for the small coastal town of Hilo on the Big Island of Hawaii. This island is where a young Jennifer Doudna used to hike with her family, watching lava flows, adventuring among the native flora and fauna, and viewing the tropical birds fluttering about.Technically, Doudna, the 2026 Priestley Medalist and winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, was born in Washington, DC. But Hawaii is the place that fills Doudna with a sense of reverence and solemnity that one can hold only for a home long since moved away from. “I deeply love Hawaii. I love the culture there. It's a very special place,” she says. “I'm fascinated by the history there, not only the sociology and kind of the people and the populations but also the natural history.”Island ecosystems are notable to those who study biology. The isolation and containment of an island can create a natural laboratory in which the shape and form of creatures shift over the years in response to evolutionary pressures. There’s a reason Charles Darwin was able to surmise the processes of evolution and natural selection while voyaging through the Galápagos Islands. And the environment of Hawaii helped shape Doudna’s own pursuit of science. Her work determining the molecular mechanism of CRISPR and its powerful gene-editing capabilities have helped unlock a new evolutionary era—one in which humanity has developed its own highly targeted evolutionary force and gained