According to some estimates, about a billion people owe their lives to the work of Norman Borlaug.

But you’re not alone if you’d never heard of him until this week, when papers began reporting on his death at the age of 95.

After all, plant pathology — Borlaug’s area of work — isn’t the most glamorous of fields. It’s not often that you hear the phrase, “Did you hear about the latest breakthrough in plant genetics?”

But glamour and importance often have an inverse relationship, and this is no exception. The work done by agriculturalists like Borlaug is vital.

During the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s, Borlaug spent his time in Mexico, researching and developing hardy, disease-resistant varieties of wheat. He then led the introduction of these grains, along with modern agricultural techniques, to India and Pakistan.

Despite exploding populations, these countries then managed to do what no one thought was possible – feed their citizens in the face of famine and the threat of mass starvation.

For this, Borlaug was given the title, “the father of the Green Revolution,” not to mention a few awards like the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal. In fact, he’s one of only five people ever to have been given all three of these prestigious prizes. The others include Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King Jr.

Think about the company that puts him in. On one hand you’ve got Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King Jr., icons of what it means to be virtuous; on the other hand, a farm-boy-turned-geneticist who grew up on a 106-acre farm in Saude, IA, got his primary education in a one-room schoolhouse and failed his first college entrance exam.

Even Borlaug felt a little out of place in that lineup. Apparently when he was told he’d won the Nobel Peace Price, he initially thought it was a hoax. In his reception speech he stated that he was accepting the award as a symbol of everyone who was working to increase food production worldwide.

But without a doubt, Borlaug was a hero.

Ground breaking, world-changing work doesn’t always end with something as glamorous as a moon landing. Sometimes it’s as seemingly simple as a variety of wheat with a stronger stem or higher disease tolerance.

So when you think of what it means to be a hero, think beyond the traditional image. One doesn’t have to be highly visible or be a soldier, police officer or firefighter to qualify.

And if you’re going into a field that doesn’t get much attention; if you’re planning to teach or research hard science and not expecting to get much monetary reward or if you’re hoping to make a difference through studies that are above the heads of most of the rest of us, we on the editorial board salute you.

The ripple effects of your work may be more than you can imagine. You just may save the next billion people.