Alumna Working at the South Pole

Kelly Kozdras doesn’t shy away from a challenge.  She’s completed marathons, served as an AmeriCorps volunteer and survived living in the heart of New York City as a supervisor for the New York City Transit Authority.

Now, the 1999 electrical engineering graduate is spending the next year helping construct a new National Science Foundation research station at the South Pole.

Kozdras arrived in Antarctica in mid-October to provide field engineering support for Raytheon Polar Services Company’s construction of the South Pole Modernization project on the geographic South Pole.  Several wings of the new, elevated station were completed before Kozdras’ arrival.  The project will continue through next October or early November.

It may be summer there now, but Kozdras is anxiously looking forward to frigid winter months when temperatures reach -117 degrees F.

“I’m not ready to deal with what winter will be like there,” she said in a pre-trip e-mail message.