Nominated by Rob Mies.

Kim Williams started working with bats during her graduate work at Eastern Michigan University, studying the endangered Indiana bat in the swamps of Michigan. The result of this research helped to protect wetlands where the Indiana bats live. Kim founded the Organization for Bat Conservation (OBC) to educate people about the importance of bats. The OBC now presents over 1,500 live bat programs a year throughout the U.S. These programs teach students about the gentleness, uniqueness and importance of bats. Kim's programs have changed the lives of many students. One teacher called after a program to tell of a student in her class, once aggressive toward animals, who found a bat with a broken wing on his way home. He had learned during the program not to touch bats, but to ask an adult for help. He ran back to school, and requested her help. The teacher called Kim, and she rescued the bat. The bat was rehabilitated and could again fly. Weeks later Kim called the teacher and the boy and they released the bat together. If the bat had been unreleasable it would have lived at the OBC. All bats that are used in programs have been rescued from the wild, where they were either injured or orphaned. Other bats have been adopted from research facilities where they were not needed or from zoo facilities. Kim is the author of several papers, along with books such as Understanding Bats and the first field guide to bats, Beginner's Guide to Bats.