Biology professor Siobhan Fennessy has made it her mission to save what remains of Ohio's decimated wetlands. She has learned much about "the ferocity with which people will fight" scientists whose efforts to protect the environment would encroach upon property rights. During five years working at the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the botany and ecosystems specialist gained an inside understanding of public policy and laws restricting ecological rescue efforts.

At the Ohio EPA, Fennessy developed a program for restoring and replacing wetlands lost to property development, which has since become a model for other states. Ohio has lost 90 percent of its wetlands, along with the biological diversity those sites used to support.

Today, Fennessy teaches courses at Kenyon, conducts research at the College's Brown Family Environmental Center, and mentors the College's Summer Science scholars, traveling with her protégés to international conferences to present the results of their research. She's quoted as a media expert on wetlands and has advised states such a California on how to develop wetland monitoring programs. Co-author of Wetland Plants: Biology and Ecology, a reference work for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and professionals, Fennessy says the lessons she learned at the Ohio EPA still shape her research interests. "I find most satisfying those projects that I know can have some real-world applications pretty quickly," she says.