Najiyah is originally from Madura. She is currently pursuing her study in Religion and Nature at University of Florida. She is inspired to take that field of study because she found that her background of studies and researches fit with this new emerging field of study and she has conducted research on Islam and Ecology and contributed a chapter in a Handbook of Religion and Ecology published by Routledge in 2016 and 2017.

She earned her bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Technology at Universitas Gadjah Mada and master’s in Religious Studies at the Center for Religious and Cross-cultural Studies (CRCS), Universitas Gadjah Mada. Prior to her Fulbright award, she is a staff of Public Education at CRCS of UGM.