James Balog's latest work, the Extreme Ice Survey, captures the twisting, soaring forms of threatened wild ice.

Jason Fried thinks deeply about collaboration, productivity and the nature of work. He's the co-founder of 37signals, makers of Basecamp and other web-based collaboration tools, and co-author of "Rework."

Louise Leakey hunts for hominid fossils in East Africa, in the family tradition.

Director of the New America Foundation Energy Policy Initiative, Lisa Margonelli writes about the global culture and economy of energy.

Lisa Gansky is the author of "The Mesh: Why the Future of Business Is Sharing," and the instigator behind the Mesh Directory (www.meshing.it).

Zoologist Dr. Lucy King helms the Human-Elephant Coexistence Program for the Kenyan research charity Save the Elephants.

Lisa Jackson is an environmental and social impact leader who has dedicated her career to building a greener and more just economy.

In books, TV shows and even an annual sloth calendar, Lucy Cooke shares unexpected truths about animals.

At MIT, Hugh Herr builds prosthetic knees, legs and ankles that fuse biomechanics with microprocessors to restore (and perhaps enhance) normal gait, balance and speed.

Kitchen-sized fish farms, living air purifiers and devices that turn old water bottles into martini shakers all spring from the form-and-function-fusing mind of designer Mathieu Lehanneur.

Lisa Kristine uses photography to expose deeply human stories.

Lucy Kalanithi is dedicated to helping others choose the health care and end-of-life experiences that best align with their values.

Luisa Neubauer is a climate activist, author and leader of the "Fridays For Future" school strike movement.

Liz Coleman radically remade Bennington College in the mid-1990s, in pursuit of a new vision: higher education as a performing art.

New Yorker cartoonist Liza Donnelly tackles global issues with humor, intelligence and sarcasm. Her latest project supports the United Nations initiative Cartooning For Peace.

Paul Piff studies how social hierarchy, inequality and emotion shape relations between individuals and groups.

Lisa Nip's work focuses on how we can use synthetic biology to allow humanity to explore space

Trained as a classical ballerina and architect, Lucy McRae is fascinated by the human body, and how it can be shaped by technology.

Lisa Bu has built a career helping people find great stories to listen to. Now she tells her own story.

Researcher Lisa Mosconi studies the brains of living patients with cutting-edge brain-imaging technology -- and uses the data to understand how brain health plays out differently in women than in men.

Dr. Lucy Hone builds resilience among individuals, communities and organizations.

Liz Fosslien uses behavioral science to make work better.

Ethan Lisi believes we are all different and unique in our own way.

Through her fiction, Lisa Genova beckons us into the lives of people with neurological disease, making their worlds real and relatable.

Stuart Oda is an indoor urban farmer with a passion for innovation and sustainability. His goal: democratize access to fresh and nutritious food by democratizing the means and knowledge of production.

CNN and ESPN columnist LZ Granderson is a celebrated voice on sports, race and gay rights.

Lisa Dyson thinks a new class of crops might help us reinvent agriculture -- and feed the world.

Physicist Garrett Lisi has proposed a new "theory of everything" -- a grand unified theory that explains all the elementary particles, as well as gravity.

A powerful thinker and globe-trotting advisor on sustainability, Louise Fresco says it's time to think of food as a topic of social and economic importance on par with oil -- that responsible agriculture and food consumption are crucial to world stability.

Lisa Harouni is the co-founder of Digital Forming, working in "additive manufacturing" -- or 3D printing.