For more than 20 years, physicist Craig Kletzing has flourished as a researcher at the University of Iowa, where his work using rockets and satellites to learn about Earth’s auroras has yielded an astounding contract award from NASA. Iowa also offered Kletzing the opportunity to teach a wide range of physics courses—a source of personal reward he wasn’t guaranteed elsewhere.

Alexander Rubinow has a talent for telling fish tales—and not those harmless embellishments passed down through generations. The University of Iowa graduate is an editor on the Discovery Channel’s hit series “Deadliest Catch,” and he has an Emmy to show for it.