Keynote Speakers

Kathleen Kempe

Senior Policy Manager / Google LLC / Boulder, CO

Born and raised in Germany, Kathleen always had a passion for languages. After completing her Undergrads at Universities in Germany and the UK, focusing on German, English and Latin Literature & Linguistics, she spent two years at WVU for Grad School and also worked as a Teaching Assistant. Following her degree, she went back to Germany and worked as a TV reporter acquiring an additional qualification in Journalism. After two years on the job and still having an interest in living abroad, she accepted a position at Google Ireland as a customer service representative. Since then, Kathleen has spent the last 16 years working in various roles and teams at Google, located in offices in Dublin, Wroclaw (Poland), San Francisco and now Boulder.

Joshua A Wixom

Geographer, U.S. Census Bureau Field Division, Geographic Support Bra nch

I am from Naples, NY - a small town in the Finger Lakes. After high school I attended SUNY Geneseo, and quickly found Geography. After graduation in 2006 I volunteered with AmeriCorps and worked with local farmers. In 2007 I came to WVU to study climate change using dendrochronology and graduated with a Master's degree in Geography in 2010. I continued my graduate studies at WVU, focusing on climate education and scientific literacy. In 2014, my wife and I moved to Northern Virginia to follow Federal Pathways Internships while completing our doctoral degrees. After completing and defending my dissertation in 2016, I took a permanent position with the U.S. Census Bureau, and have been working with the agency for almost 7 years. Additionally, I am an adjunct lecturer for the Northern Virginia Community College system. My wife, daughter, and I live with our cat and dog in Northern Virginia. In my spare time I enjoy running, hiking, (legoing?), and building furniture.

Scott Cushing is an Assistant Professor at Caltech with a multidisciplinary background spanning Chemistry, Materials Science, and Physics. His research focuses on the creation of new scientific instrumentation that can translate quantum phenomena to practical devices and applications. Scott has been awarded DOE, AFOSR, Rose Hill, and ACS related Early Career awards. The Cushing lab is currently pioneering the use of high-flux, compact sources of entangled photons for microscopy and spectroscopy, as well as exploring attosecond x-ray and time resolved EELS approaches. Scott holds multiple patents, some of which led to a solar energy company.

 

Amy Hessl, Justin Mathias, Jamie Shinn, Brooke Eastman

Climate change and its many impacts are now an integral feature of our daily lives. In this panel, we have invited a number of researchers from around the Eberly College who are working in this area to speak about what they do and provide some thoughts and discussion about how we as a community can work together to address this critical issue. Your questions for the panelists are most welcome and we hope to have a stimulating lunchtime discussion that will lead to further ideas and opportunities as we move forward.

Graduate Student Panel