UW’s Schmid-Pizzato, Engel Honored as Wyoming Women of Influence

Two women associated with the University of Wyoming were honored with 2025 Wyoming Women of Influence awards through Adams MultiMedia of the Rockies at a luncheon Oct. 7.

Since 2013, the Wyoming Business Report, now Adams MultiMedia, has been recognizing influential women working within the state who exemplify leadership, creativity, ethical business practices, innovative thinking and unquestionable character.

Laura Schmid-Pizzato, treasurer of the UW Board of Trustees, received the Lifetime Achievement honor. And Ivy Engel, Wyoming Public Media’s (WPM) digital producer and engagement coordinator, was the honoree in the Media Journalism category.

Schmid-Pizzato, of Rock Springs, has been the manager of recovery services for Southwest Counseling Service for nearly 30 years. In that role, she has secured millions of grant dollars to improve programs, establish better protocols and provide services to people who would otherwise be unable to afford them. A nominator noted that, due to Schmid-Pizzato’s work on providing recovery services to pregnant woman, more than 140 babies have been born drug free in the Southwest Counseling Service women and children’s program.

Schmid-Pizzato earned a bachelor’s degree in Spanish from UW in 1989 and a Master of Social Work from the University of Utah in 1992. A licensed clinical social worker, she has been honored by the National Association of Social Workers for outstanding contributions to the field and as Wyoming’s outstanding social worker of the year, among many awards.

She’s the current president of the Wyoming Congressional Award Council and a former member of the Wyoming State Mental Health Professions Licensing Board, the Sweetwater County School District 1 Foundation Board, the Wyoming Children’s Society Board and National Association of Social Workers Wyoming Board.

Schmid-Pizzato was appointed to the UW Board of Trustees in 2018.

Engel directs WPM’s Daily and Weekly Roundup, a digital newsletter that garners 40,000 weekly viewers and delivers local, regional, national and global news. She reaches an audience of public broadcasting users who do not use radio as their primary source of news, working with a team of interns who learn from her work.

She started as a science news intern in 2019 and graduated from UW in 2020 with a B.S. in biology, with minors in journalism and business.

For a full list of this year’s Wyoming Women of Influence award winners, visit www.wyomingnews.com/women_of_influence/.