Past Fellowship Winners

The discovery of gold in California stimulated a large influx of immigration to America, including the Basque people from Europe. However, they discovered a more lucrative trade: sheep herding. Lindsey's project examines how the Basque portray themselves through festivals as well as in their everyday ranch life in Wyoming.

Lindsey is a Wyoming-based artist interested in sculpture, apparel design, and photography. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Visual Arts from the University of Wyoming. A principle theme in Lindsey's work is the preciousness of memory and experience in developing the complexities that make each individual life unique. Lindsey enjoys time with her two fluffy cats, exorbitant amounts of hockey and frequent trips to Red Rocks.

"Small Fish, Shallow Water" focused on a small native Wyoming fish that many have never heard of, the Hornyhead chub. Rodgers' main goal of this photojournalism project was illustrate the conservation efforts of The Wyoming Game and Fish Department who have named the Hornyhead chub a species of greatest conservation need. Because of its vulnerability, declining populations and geographic limitations to the North Laramie and Laramie rivers, the Hornyhead chub is at risk of being lost in Wyoming.

Rodgers studied visual art at the University of Wyoming, graduating in Fall 2019. Using photography as a visual tool to tell stories has been a passion of hers for several years. Rodgers lives in Cheyenne with her husband, daughter and border collie.

“In the Bed of a Truck” is a documenting project that showcases the seasonal homeless workers who make their home in the national forest around Jackson Hole throughout the summer months. This seasonal crisis comes from a lack of affordable housing but the availability of good-paying jobs. Wise’s project highlights the truth of workers being forced to make a trade off between having a place to live or saving money.

Wise was raised in a small town outside of Jackson Hole called Victor, Idaho. He became interested in photography at a young age and has always been most interested in photojournalism. Wise came to the University of Wyoming as a transfer student in 2016.

“Dance in Unlikely Places” is a group of five dancers and visual artists from the University of Wyoming who tour locations and perform for a diverse audience, and sometimes, for no one at all. Sydney Edwards is a part of this troupe and documents the ways in which the group performs. Edwards photographs dances among natural Wyoming sites to create a connection with space as well as dances within community settings, such as historical sites and care centers. The troupe strives to tailor performances for their audience and to deliver a rewarding and memorable experience.

Edwards is a local dance instructor and artist in Laramie. Having received a Dance Science BFA, she is passionate about diverse education opportunities through interdisciplinary approaches and building community through involvement and outreach. She presented at the 2017 Shepard Symposium, received the David Reif Award and the Larsh Bristol Fellowship, and advocates for arts in academia.

Hot springs in Wyoming are a primary tourist attraction. The beauty of a hot spring is complex and derived from a wide color range from the different hues created by the water. Brandon Fritz documents the allure of well-known hot springs that are found throughout Wyoming, as well as facts about each and how they were formed.

Originally from Northern Colorado, Fritz graduated from the University of Wyoming with degrees in Microbiology and Molecular Biology. He was very active in academia and Greek life throughout his time in Laramie. Fritz currently resides in Denver where he attended graduate school at University of Colorado Skaggs School of Pharmacy. Fritz's photography spreads across a wide diversity of landscapes to portrait photography.

Women in the sex industry are often stigmatized as sex workers and nothing else. It is overlooked that they may be someone’s sister, daughter, or mother. Media portrayals of sex workers generally categorize them as drug addicts or criminals. Wendy Perkins documents the realities of the everyday life of sex workers in Denver, with particular focus on their routines, hobbies, and interests, and what makes them human, just like anyone else.

Perkins received her undergraduate degree in journalism and graduate degree in communication from the University of Wyoming. She currently works as an advertising consultant for the Laramie Daily Boomerang. Perkins’ photography includes Denver-based sex workers, incarcerated people in Wyoming Correctional facilities, and LGBTQ communities. Her award-winning fellowship gallery is permanently housed on the University of Wyoming digital collections website and has been presented at several conferences and social justice forums.

In the summer of 2014, Manasseh Franklin partook in the Juneau Icefield Research Project, which was an eight-week international ski expedition from Juneau, Alaska to Atlin, British Columbia. She traveled with glaciologists, climatologists, and biologists, who all worked towards analyzing the state of the icefield. By documenting this expedition, Franklin shows the challenges behind conducting research in a glacial environment, and the mass and grandeur of the glaciers themselves.

Franklin is a writer, educator and traveler. She holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction Writing and Environment and Natural resources from the University of Wyoming, where she also is currently a full-time lecturer. Her writing has appeared in Alpinist, Adventure Journal, Western Confluence, High Country News, Rock and Ice, Afar and other magazines. The photos and poems she produced during her fellowship have been featured on Alpinist.com, and in Revista Go Outside Brazil, where the poems were translated into Portuguese.

Jordan Edgcomb travelled to Tanzania in 2010, where he experienced the cultures and lifestyles of the Maasai and Chaaga people. While there, he witnessed a young boy tending his cattle in the middle of the Serengeti, even though there had just been a lion present in the area 10 minutes earlier. This instance prompted Jordan to return to Africa and document relationships between the tribes and the wildlife.

Raised in the Bighorn Mountains in Buffalo, Edgcomb developed a deep love of the outdoors at an early age. Photography was simply an extension of his experiences in nature and a way to capture and share the breathtaking beauty and diversity of his surroundings. Edgcomb is a self-taught travel and nature photojournalist whose work has appeared in publications around the world.

Big trucks, large belt buckles, and an extensive collection of firearms might misrepresent the cowboy culture and the lifestyles of those who belong to ranching communities. Jennifer Faulkner worked to correct this stereotype by documenting the actual lifestyles of life on a ranch, as a woman who was born and raised on a ranch herself. Jennifer highlights the hard work, experience, and intelligence a successful ranching lifestyle requires.

Faulkner graduated from the University of Wyoming in 2012 with a master’s degree in Soil Science from the Department of Ecosystem Science & Management. She currently manages the 440 Ranch, located 10 miles outside of Riverton. The ranch practices holistic methods and sells its meat and produce to local people through farmer’s markets.

A few of the most prominent symbolisms that come to mind when thinking of Wyoming are rodeo, the cowboy culture, and energy development. But what about the cultural resources within the state? Lydia Renneisen Mullins brings the cultural aspects to the forefront, with focus on the community bonds that form between festival goers at music festivals throughout the state.

Mullins graduated from the University of Wyoming in 2010 with degrees in Rangeland Ecology & Watershed Management and Environment & Natural Resources. Upon graduation, Mullins accepted a position as an Environmental Scientist at Trihydro Corporation in Laramie. She is now married and raising two children at home. As Mullins' children grow older, she plans to expand her online retail business.

The rising mountain pine beetle epidemic stemmed from a period of extended drought in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Vast amounts of mature lodgepole pines have been killed by the beetles in northern Colorado and southern Wyoming. Josh King chronicled this natural phenomenon, with special focus on the Snowy Range in the Medicine Bow National Forest. King used photographs to show the extent in which the pine beetle has affected both the ecological conditions within the forest and the socio-economic implications for recreation within these areas.

King graduated from the University of Wyoming’s American Studies Program in 2009. He became interested in the mountain pine beetle epidemic while manning the Centennial Visitor Center in the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest. King now lives in Switzerland.

Every year, the Pronghorn who spend the summer in the shadow of the Grand Tetons in Jackson Hole migrate south to their wintering range in the Red Desert. Joe Riis documented this migration with a special emphasis on the obstacles that the Pronghorn encounter such as treacherous mountain passes, human housing, the Green River, and vehicle traffic on Hwy. 191.

Riis is a wildlife biologist turned wildlife photojournalist and filmmaker known for his pioneering documentation of animal migrations in the West. Author of Yellowstone Migrations and Photography Fellow at the National Geographic Society as well as the Wyoming Migration Initiative. Since 2009, he has worked on natural history photography assignments for National Geographic Magazine on five continents. His photographs have been exhibited widely, and are included in private and public collections worldwide.