At 20, Tierna Davidson stands out as the youngest player on the U.S. women’s World Cup team. The 5-foot, 10-inch center back also has an unusual academic background for a professional soccer player: She studied management sciences and engineering at Stanford University.

Though she dropped out to focus on soccer – the National Women’s Soccer League’s No. 1 draft pick signed with the Chicago Red Stars this spring – she hopes to return to finish her undergraduate degree and even one day fulfill her childhood dream of becoming an astronaut.

Davidson isn’t the only STEM student-athlete to compete at soccer’s highest level. FIFA Women’s World Cup champion and Olympic soccer gold medalist Kelley O’Hara, 30, majored in science, technology and society with a focus in environmental engineering. She made the 2019 U.S. World Cup team but her recovery from breaking an ankle in the spring may keep her on the bench.

Both will don sustainable U.S. Women’s National Team uniforms made by Nike that contain 12 recycled plastic bottles per kit.

Then there’s Celia Jimenez Delgado, 23, a Spanish women’s national team player who helped propel La Roja to qualify for the 2015 Women’s World Cup finals. Nicknamed the “Rocket Scientist” for majoring in aerospace engineering at the University of Alabama, she heads to the 2019 World Cup after playing for the Seattle Reign FC this season.

For women, playing professional soccer is neither easy nor lucrative. Indeed, 28 members U.S. Women’s National Team filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation for gender discrimination . The U.S. women’s team, ranked No. 1 in the world, has won the World Cup three times and are four-time Olympic champions. The U.S. men’s team has won neither tournament and failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup. Yet women players get paid less for each “friendly” match, for making the team’s World Cup roster, and even for playing at the World Cup. The complaint alleges that if the women’s and men’s national teams each played and won 20 friendlies in a year, female players would earn a maximum of $99,000 (or $4,950 per game) while their male counterparts would earn an average of $263,320, or $13,166 per game.

Former women’s pro-soccer player Marisha Schumacher-Hodge understands first-hand how touch it can be to make a living as a female pro-soccer player. After graduating with a degree in  environmental analysis and policy from Boston University, she decided to go professional, making it all the way to the Women’s UEFA Champions League before pursuing a master’s degree in education and deciding to retire form soccer at age 25.

Her journey didn’t end with a secure public-sector job, however. Helping her sister, a former teacher who switched careers into the tech industry, launch a website opened her eyes to the exciting world of start-ups and computer programming.

Engineer and former Jordanian national women’s team player Farah Al-Badarneh went on to become the Competition and Venues Director for the Local Organizing Committee for the 2016 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup. Among her assignments: Overseeing the renovation of 17 derelict training fields. “I’ve played for years on these pitches and I’m happy today to take part in developing them so that Jordanian football can benefit from them for years to come,” she told FIFA at the time.

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Tags: #ILookLikeAnEngineer, 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup, Celia Jimenez Delgado, female soccer players who studied engineering, Kelley O'Hara, Marisha Schumacher-Hodge, soccer, Sports, Tierna Davidson, USWNT