young snow professional award recipients
The ISSW 2026 Young Snow Professional (YSP) Award Program supports early-career avalanche practitioners and researchers by helping reduce barriers to conference participation and fostering professional development within the international avalanche community. This years recipients are…
Patrick Jenewein
Co-founder and Developer | Jenewein & Maffey OG | Innsbruck, Austria
Patrick Jenewein is the co-founder of Jenewein & Maffey OG and a developer of Avalano, an automated probe designed to digitize snow-temperature profiles. His interest in snow and avalanches began as a teenager while ski touring and freeriding with his older brother in the mountains around Innsbruck. Now 22, Patrick combines a background in industrial engineering with business studies to advance Avalano from an early prototype toward a practical tool for snow professionals. His goal is to complement field expertise with high-resolution measurements that help practitioners better understand spatial and temporal variability in the snowpack.
Seth HewieAvalanche and GIS Technician | Alpine Solutions | Whitehorse, Yukon
Seth Hewie is an Avalanche and GIS Technician with Alpine Solutions, based in Whitehorse, Yukon. He supports operational avalanche programs for highway and industrial projects and contributes year-round to avalanche modelling, cartography, UAV surveys, LiDAR processing, and GIS production. Seth developed his operational experience at ski areas and remote backcountry operations across western Canada and New Zealand and is also certified as a Primary Care Paramedic. His work brings together field-based avalanche practice and geomatics, with a focus on using spatial data and emerging survey technologies to strengthen avalanche forecasting, mapping, and risk management.
Jacopo Borsotti
PhD Student | Simon Fraser University Avalanche Research Program | Burnaby, British Columbia
Jacopo Borsotti is a PhD student with the Simon Fraser University Avalanche Research Program. He earned an MSc in Mathematics from the University of Parma, including an internship with the Livigno Avalanche Center, Alpsolut, where he developed modelling approaches for operational avalanche forecasting. His work combined snowpack simulations and digital elevation models to investigate snow stability and terrain predisposition to avalanche release. After working as a research fellow in mathematical physics at the University of Parma, Jacopo joined Simon Fraser University in fall 2025. His doctoral research focuses on integrating ensemble modelling and synthetic aperture radar remote sensing into operational avalanche forecasting.
Leonie Kommerell
Engineer | Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE) | Narvik, Norway
Leonie Kommerell is an engineer with the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE) in Narvik. She contributes to ALARM 2.0, an automated Python-based workflow that combines avalanche-terrain classification with regional avalanche simulations using AvaFrame to identify buildings potentially exposed to avalanches across Norways forecast regions. Leonie holds a masters degree in natural-hazard research from the University of Innsbruck, where her fieldwork examined geomorphological processes in Svalbard. As a Norskred Young Snow Professional at ISSW 2026 in Whistler, she is mentored by Holt Hancock and will present her work on applying automated terrain analysis and avalanche modelling at a regional scale.
Itai Sheleg
High School Student | Leadville, Colorado
Itai Sheleg is a high school student based in Leadville, Colorado, with a strong interest in the outdoors, creativity, and learning about the natural world. He spends summers and falls exploring mountain-bike trails and winters skiing in the backcountry, where he is keen to dig a snow pit or two in search of good skiing. Away from the mountains, Itai enjoys origami and often listens to heavy metal while folding intricate masks and mythical creatures. His creative work reflects a broader fascination with mythology, folklore from different cultures, and history.
