JenOsha (Señora Jen, Loba madre) is the Director of the Mountain SOL School, lead instructor for the Medic path, and co instructor for the Scout and Herbalist Programs. She is a passionate advocate for environmental and social justice education for our youth. She is a Wilderness First Aid instructor through the Human Path and also holds her EMT license. She is a National Geographic certified instructor and serves on the National Geographic WV Advisory committee, is the recipient of the Ambassadors for Progress award, West Virginia Wonder Woman award, the Guiding Light Award from the West Virginia Watershed Network, and is a Switzer Fellow with the Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation. JenOsha a teacher at our “Mother School” Morgantown Learning Academy where she currently teaches West Virginia History and Geography and has also taught Spanish, music, and special topics courses.
JenOsha received her B.A. in English with Honors from the University of Virginia and then traveled to Ecuador as a volunteer English teacher for WorldTeach. She helped to found a non profit, Fundacion Nucanchi Yuracuna, with Santiago Diaz and Rodrigo Donoso, in response to severe impacts from the El Niño storm. That non profit evolved into Aurora Lights when she moved back to the United States. She served as its President from 1998 to 2012. During this time she received her Masters in Forestry from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies with research on the role of native trees in reforestation in the Andes. JenOsha was invited by environmental activist and hero Larry Gibson one day to come and learn about the impacts of Mountaintop removal. Initially intrigued to see how land post strip mining could be reforested, as well as a desire to learn more about her own coal mining heritage, JenOsha moved to West Virginia and fell deeply in love with the state. She produced the benefit CD “Moving Mountains: Voices of Appalachia Rise Up Against Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining” from 2000-2003. She became a mother in 2003 and lived as a homesteader for a few years in the mountains she loves. She continued to research and organize around mountaintop removal and moved to Morgantown to complete her PhD at the geography department at WVU. For two years she lived back and forth between Morgantown and Rock Creek, WV, where her research was focused on the impacts of mountaintop removal (MTR) coal mining on the communities surrounding Coal River Mountain in Raleigh County, West Virginia. Jen was a co-producer for the second MTR benefit CD, “Still Moving Mountains: The Journey Home” which was released in June of 2009, and the project director for the award winning multimedia website Journey Up Coal River. During this time, she was able to bring two groups of college students to the Ecuadorian highlands and amazon. She was blessed again as a mother in 2010.
In addition to her life experiences as an activist, homesteader, and mother, the biggest inspiration to create a school such as Mountain SOL came from her time in Ecuador learning how the Huaorani people raise their children as well as a promise to share their stories. That dream manifested into reality with the energy and vision of a pack of amazing young people, co-founders Hannah Spencer and Liz Wiles, the unwavering support of Eve Ward at the Morgantown Learning Academy, and the co creation of a summer program with Bethany Boback. Coming to work every day at Mountain SOL and watching it grow with so much energy and life is truly a blessing.
JenOsha is also a musician and has played in both professional and for fun groups ranging from a Spanish pop music band to Celtic music to Old Time to Country and Blues. She will sing Janis Joplin or in the Yale Camerata depending on the mood. She plays the piano, Irish whistle, and banjo and has a lot of fun with many other instruments. In addition to MLA and Mt SOL, Jen has also taught at the West Virginia Scholars Academy at the Mountain Institute, Yale University, the New Jersey School of Conservation, Salem International University, in the geography department at West Virginia University, and at Escuela Superior Politécnica de Chimborazo. JenOsha lives outside Morgantown with her husband, two sons, and many four legged animals.