UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — On March 28, 1978, a nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, experienced a partial meltdown. At the time, W. Larry Kenney, professor of physiology and kinesiology and Marie Underhill Noll Chair in Human Performance, was about to enter graduate school. The following year, he began working with the nuclear power industry on worker safety during the clean-up from the accident.
Workers at Three Mile Island were dressed in protective gear that Kenney compared to "three or four layers of Ziploc bags." The gear took two hours to put on, and then workers labored in an ambient temperature reaching up to 160 degrees Fahrenheit. After 20 minutes, workers were completely exhausted and done for the day.
“This experience sparked my interest in how humans regulate their temperature,” Kenney said. “And when I began to study temperature regulation, I was drawn to aging populations because older adults are far more likely to suffer or die during extended periods of extreme heat.”
Now, 44 years after the Three Mile Island meltdown, Kenney studies the limits of heat that humans can tolerate as global climate change affects people around the world. Learn more about Kenney’s insights into what humans can — and cannot — withstand.