JESSICA ROGOWICZ (39) 
Special Education Teacher at South Fayette High School; Founder, Pittsburgh Melanoma Foundation

Whether she’s in school teaching algebra and geometry or at South Park running a 5K for the charity she created, Jessica Rogowicz is busy.

Rogowicz, a special education teacher at South Fayette High School, was first diagnosed with melanoma, the most severe form of skin cancer, just shy of her 25th birthday. Since then she’s had two recurrences. To raise funds as well as awareness of this disease, she founded the Pittsburgh Melanoma Foundation in 2012; so far it has brought in $345,000.

The charity’s flagship event is its annual 5K held in June, which draws an average of 1,600 participants, including 50 melanoma survivors.

The goal of starting the foundation, she says, was to try to take something that had brought so much negativity into her life and turn it into something positive. “At the end of my life — which hopefully is a very long time from now — I just want to leave this earth knowing that I’ve had a more positive impact on it than a negative one,” she says.