Jean Snedegar, Author at West Virginia Public Broadcasting

The Ice Hunters

Follow two of the world’s leading paleoclimatologists to the top of the world and both poles!

Using ice cores they drill themselves, Marshall graduates Lonnie Thompson, from Gassaway, and Ellen Mosley-Thompson, from Charleston, study the history of climate at the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University. Lonnie was the first scientist in the world to drill ice cores on glaciers in tropical regions. And he has spent more time above 20,000 feet than anyone in history.

Ellen Mosley-Thompson was one of the first women to lead an ice-drilling expedition to a polar region, and recently returned from an ice-drilling expedition to the Antarctic Peninsula. Lonnie has received the nation’s highest award in science — the National Medal of Science.

In Search of Meaningful Work

Travel to Amish country to hear about one of the most unusual medical clinics in the United States — the Clinic for Special Children in Strasburg, Pennsylvania, founded by Dr. D. Holmes Morton, of Fayetteville, and his wife, Caroline, from Beckley. Here doctors and scientists diagnose and treat rare genetic disorders in children from Old Order Amish and Mennonite communities.

Newborn screening programs developed at the clinic have been adopted by Pennsylvania as a whole, and by many states across the country. And the Clinic is equipped to do sophisticated genetic testing rapidly and inexpensively for the communities they serve.

Sylvia Mathews Burwell – HHS Secretary

Meet Hinton-native Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the new Secretary of Health and Human Services in Washington. Previously she was the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Burwell is the past President of Global Development at the Bill & Linda Gates Foundation in Seattle, the world’s largest charitable organization. At the Foundation Mathews Burwell was responsible for giving away $750 billion a year to help some of the world’s poorest people have access to better agricultural techniques, financial services and clean water and sanitation.

Today she runs a government department with 70,000 people and a budget in excess of a trillion dollars. Yet she remains in regular touch with her childhood friends, and is proud of her West Virginia roots. “It is an incredible thing to be from our state”, Burwell says. “I am so proud of being from a place where I think so many important values of hard work, respect, sense of community are instilled.”

Brad Smith – Using a Moral Compass

Hear why co-workers of Brad Smith, President & CEO of the global financial software giant, Intuit, say he’s the best ambassador West Virginia could ever have.

With Marshall memorabilia in abundance in his office, this Wayne County native boldly declares that everyone in the company knows about his alma mater, Marshall University, and his hometown, Kenova, West Virginia.

Smith said his life lessons from West Virginia include integrity, humility and teamwork. “You learn in West Virginia that life is a team sport. Communities stick together. Families stick together. Those things have stuck with me and they keep me grounded.”

John Ochsendorf – The Accidental Professor

Elkins-native John Ochsendorf, 36, is a professor of structural engineering and architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge,…

Elkins-native John Ochsendorf, 36, is a professor of structural engineering and architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. At 26 – eight years after he graduated from Elkins High School – he became one of the youngest professors ever appointed at the world’s top technical university.

Ochsendorf has uniquely combined his interests in engineering, archeology and architectural history to become the world’s leading authority on ancient building structures – masonry arches, domes and vaulted ceilings in Gothic cathedrals and rope suspension bridges in the former Inca Empire. Using some of these ancient building principles he has helped design a number of award-winning energy-efficient structures using local materials, including a museum in South Africa, which was named the “World Building of the Year” in 2009.

John Ochsendorf is a 2008 MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellow and a regular speaker at the National Youth Science Camp in Pocahontas County.

Geoffrey Cousins – Heart Pioneer

Dr. Geoffrey Cousins, 42, is one of West Virginia’s most innovative heart surgeons and a pioneer of robotic-assisted heart surgery in the United States. He lives with his wife and four children in Charleston and practices cardio-thoracic surgery at the Charleston Area Medical Center.

The youngest of 11 children of a McDowell County coal miner, Cousins grew up in a close-knit African-American community. Due to his father’s on-going health problems, he traveled with his parents to hospitals and doctors’ offices across southern West Virginia, seeking help that didn’t materialize. At a young age Cousins decided that one day he would help others in a way that his father was not helped.

After his father’s retirement, the family moved to Detroit, but Geoffrey Cousins never forgot his dream. After finishing his education and medical training, he returned to his beloved West Virginia to provide cutting-edge heart surgery to the state’s residents, especially those who are underserved.