Research & Economic Development Division
Dept. 3355, 1000 E. University Avenue
Old Main Room 308
Laramie, WY 82071
Phone: (307) 766-5353
Fax: (307) 766-2608
March 06, 2025
The University of Wyoming recently took an important step in its efforts to bolster
a culture of innovation and translational research among its research faculty and
postdoctoral fellows to translate their research into practical and economically beneficial
solutions that contribute to the growth of Wyoming’s economy.
UW’s Technology Transfer Office hosted a two-day event called the National Science Foundation (NSF) ART Ambassador Forum last month to educate and inform more than 40 ambassadors who are volunteers from within and beyond the campus. These ambassadors are tasked with building and sustaining awareness of ways to maximize potential of UW research for outcomes that benefit local, regional and statewide communities of Wyoming.
ART, which stands for “Accelerated Research Translation,” is a relatively new NSF funding program designed to support research institutions such as UW that seek to broaden and improve their ability to make academic research beneficial to the public.
“Identifying and training NSF ART ambassadors at UW is a crucial step for us to ensure we are making the most of our research when it comes to applying it for community benefit,” says Parag Chitnis, UW vice president for research and economic development. “This forum helped us educate and inform people we will rely upon to be champions of research translation for UW in the months and years ahead. This is a crucial effort that will increase the pace and scale of making UW research relevant and useful to Wyoming residents.”
UW’s ART program is supported at the highest levels of campus leadership: UW President Ed Seidel and Chitnis are its co-principal investigators. The university currently has three ART grant projects funded as part of NSF’s first ART program investments that were announced in September. These projects are already helping to catalyze campuswide change to foster and speed up the pace of research-enabled innovation by including graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.
The ART Ambassador Forum, which took place Feb. 20-21, covered topics such as roles and responsibilities of ART ambassadors; resource requirements; examples of the benefits of commercializing research output; and understanding how to work with businesses and industries to successfully turn research into economically beneficial enterprises. These presentations and discussions were led by people from Colorado State University and the private consulting firm Apio Innovation Transfer (APIOiX) -- UW’s partners in the NSF ART grant and the Colorado-Wyoming Climate Resilience Engine.
The event wrapped up with a final presentation by Seidel and Chitnis on the importance of building and sustaining an “innovation culture” at UW. The forum will be followed by online programming regarding ideation, use-inspired research and transferring translational research outcomes for impact.
February 13, 2025
The University of Wyoming has reached the highest level of American research universities,
reflecting the university’s broad impact and evolution into a world-class hub for
research, innovation, entrepreneurship and public scholarship.
UW is one of 187 institutions nationwide designated as an R1 university by the American Council on Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Today’s (Thursday) announcement puts UW in the top tier of U.S. research universities, as just 4.8 percent of the nation’s nearly 4,000 accredited, degree-granting institutions have reached this “very high research activity” category.
“Achieving Carnegie R1 status increases the value of a UW degree; serves as an impressive recruiting tool for faculty, staff and students; enhances our ability to boost the state’s economy; enriches the student experience through research opportunities; and builds on the already extraordinary sense of pride among members of the UW community,” UW President Ed Seidel says. “Getting to this point has taken years of effort. I’m delighted we have achieved this milestone, and we will keep working hard to enhance our value to students and the state of Wyoming.”
Through strategic investments in the last few years, such as the formation of the UW Graduate School and new programs to support research, UW has been supporting faculty members and students to foster its research enterprise. The university now stands at $166 million annually in research expenditures, an increase of 78 percent since 2021, ranking UW 42nd among the 318 public universities without a medical school.
Additionally, Carnegie R1 status is a measure of a university’s scholarly production. UW regularly produces close to 100 Ph.D. graduates each year.
“Ultimately, this designation sets the stage for economic gains and job growth in Wyoming, beyond even the nearly 14,700 jobs and more than $1.3 billion annually that UW contributes to Wyoming’s economy,” says Parag Chitnis, UW’s vice president for research and economic development. “Most importantly, it will benefit our students, because faculty engaged in research generate new knowledge that advances the education students receive both inside and outside of the classroom. Students will be more prepared for careers through inquiry-focused work in labs and creative spaces.”
UW researchers are tackling a wide variety of challenges in fields that are crucial to Wyoming’s current and future economy, including energy, agriculture, natural resources, biomedical sciences and artificial intelligence. To learn more about the university’s research enterprise, read the latest issue of UWyo Magazine.
Among the changes made in recent years to boost UW’s research performance were a reorganization of academic departments to better assemble teams for addressing complex problems for which there are large grant opportunities; reworking UW’s Science Initiative to make it more competitive, with interdisciplinary centers that will allow faculty and students to do more than they could do in just their home departments; starting a School of Computing to link the entire academic enterprise with common expertise; creating an Office of Industry and Strategic Partnerships and boosting the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation to enhance impact on the state’s economy; expanding the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science with new faculty positions; and creating an Artificial Intelligence Initiative, which includes faculty positions, postdoctoral programs, corporate partners, computational facilities and seed grants across the campus.
“UW graduates have long demonstrated that they can compete with graduates of even the most elite universities in the country, but now there’s an added measure of prestige associated with their UW diplomas,” Seidel says. “And, because the prestige of R1 status traditionally has served as magnet for people looking to work and study at the top of their fields, UW is now even more attractive to top-tier faculty and students from around the world.”
About the American Council on Education
The American Council on Education unites and leads higher education institutions toward a shared vision for the future. With more than 1,600 member colleges, universities and associations, the organization designs solutions for today’s challenges and advances public policy to support a diverse and dynamic higher education sector. Learn more at www.acenet.edu.
About the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
The mission of the Carnegie Foundation is to catalyze transformational change in education so that every student has the opportunity to live a healthy, dignified and fulfilling life. Enacted by an act of Congress in 1906, the foundation has a rich history of driving transformational change in the education sector.
January 29, 2025
In late January the University of Wyoming awarded and honored the research and innovation of several members of its faculty in celebration of the impact, relevance and importance of their respective work.
UW’s annual Celebration of Excellence in Research and Innovation awards event, which was held at the Marian H. Rochelle Gateway Center, featured distinguished researcher, innovator and research service awards to three faculty members. An award also featured a standout UW school for demonstrating exemplary research culture.
The event designated several faculty members as honorees for research and innovation excellence, and recognized faculty members from select UW schools and colleges for their respective contributions to research excellence.
“We are incredibly fortunate and proud to have such prodigiously productive and impactful researchers here at the University of Wyoming,” President Ed Seidel said. “The work that the researchers being recognized today perform has massive consequences for our university, state and the world. These are just a few of the many UW faculty similarly making positive and profound impacts with the research they conduct. Congratulations to those we recognize today, along with our gratitude and thanks to all researchers here at UW.”
Kevin Monteith, a professor of natural resource science in UW’s Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources, was given the UW Distinguished Researcher Award. His research focuses on understanding the behavior and life history of large mammals to reveal the mechanisms behind their fitness and population dynamics. Monteith is experienced at employing extensive field studies of individual animals’ life history and nutrition. He engages and mentors a large number of undergraduate and graduate students in his research. Monteith’s research is used in managing wildlife populations in Wyoming.
Maohong Fan, a professor of chemical and biomedical engineering and energy and petroleum engineering in the School of Energy Resources, was given the UW Distinguished Innovator Award. Fan has led and worked on many projects in the areas of chemical production, clean energy generation and environmental protection that have been supported by various domestic and international funding agencies and industrial companies. He has helped various chemical, environmental and energy companies to overcome their technical challenges. He is a member of the prestigious National Academy of Inventors and is one of the most cited researchers, according to the annual list published by the analytics company Clarivate.
Scott Seville, a professor of zoology and physiology and senior associate dean of UW’s College of Agriculture, Life Sciences and Natural Resources, was given the UW Distinguished Research Service Award. He directs the Wyoming IDeA Networks for Biomedical Research Excellence Program (INBRE), which is funded by National Institutes of Health (NIH). In this capacity, he led UW collaborations in biomedical research with all community colleges and fostered NIH-funded research at UW. As a result, many UW faculty members have been able to submit competitive research projects. Seville also has served in leadership roles in many national organizations.
The event also featured recognition of UW’s School of Energy Resources with the Exemplary Research Culture Award.
Honorees in Research and Innovation Excellence
UW recognized research by Matt Kauffman, Department of Zoology and Physiology; David Fay, INBRE and Department of Molecular Biology; and innovation by Mark Gomelsky, Department of Molecular Biology, and John Oakey, College of Engineering and Physical Sciences, as Honorees in Research and Innovation Excellence.
Additional college- and school-specific research honors were accepted by respective faculty members, including: Melissa Morris, College of Arts and Sciences; Jeff Beck and Thomas Boothby, College of Agriculture, Life Sciences and Natural Resources; Katie Li-Oakey and Jifa Tian, College of Engineering and Physical Sciences; Kelly Simonton, College of Health Sciences; Linda Price, College of Business; Emanual Eidin, College of Education; Kelly Dunning, Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources; Jason Robison, College of Law; Selena Gerace, School of Energy Resources; and Andrew Kirby, School of Computing.
2024 NSF CAREER Award Winners
The National Science Foundation’s CAREER award is among its most prestigious recognitions of research by university faculty. It is awarded to those who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations. UW’s 2024 NSF CAREER awardees recognized at the event are Nga Nguyen, College of Engineering and Physical Sciences; Diksha Shukla, College of Engineering and Physical Sciences; and Xiang Zhang, College of Engineering and Physical Sciences.
January 24, 2025
Small-business owners may be familiar with ChatGPT but had the opportunity to learn more about other generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools Friday, Jan. 31, 2025.
Paul Johnson, Marree Reed, Izabella Carbert, Ian Moon and Kaeden Adams led a Wyoming Small Business Development Center (SBDC) Network webinar titled “AI Products Roundup: Part 2” from noon-1 p.m.
The Wyoming SBDC Network offers business expertise to help Wyoming residents think about, launch, grow, reinvent or exit their business. The Wyoming SBDC Network is hosted by the University of Wyoming with state funds from the Wyoming Business Council and funded, in part, through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Previously in November, colleagues presented their research findings regarding AI platforms that they identified as having sound privacy and data protection policies. In this follow-up session, the presenters dove into the functions, costs and small-business applications of some of those platforms. The webinar included live look-ins at some of the tools; test a few prompts; and discuss how these AI-driven tools can assist entrepreneurs with marketing content generation, data analysis and social media scheduling.
Johnson is manager of the Wyoming SBDC Network’s Cybersecurity Program.
Reed is a cybersecurity program assistant in UW’s Cybersecurity Education and Research Center and a part-time employee with Institutional Marketing.
Carbert, a UW student from Ranchester, is a cybersecurity program assistant in UW’s Cybersecurity Education and Research Center and a part-time employee with the Wyoming SBDC Network.
Moon, a UW student from Fort Collins, Colorado, and Adams, a UW student from Cheyenne, are both cybersecurity program assistants with the Wyoming SBDC Network’s Cybersecurity Program.
January 23, 2025
The Jay Kemmerer Wyoming Outdoor Recreation, Tourism and Hospitality (WORTH) Institute at the University of Wyoming -- in partnership with the Wyoming Office of Outdoor Recreation -- has compiled a report to document several key elements of how this industry contributes to Wyoming’s communities.
In 2023, the outdoor recreation industry generated $2.2 billion, or 4.1 percent, of Wyoming’s GDP (gross domestic product). Since 2012, Wyoming has seen a 4.5 percent increase in annual growth of the outdoor recreation economy.
The report underscores how outdoor recreation directly supports 15,798 jobs in Wyoming across industries. It highlights the contributions to Wyoming’s GDP by different outdoor industries, including snow sports, RV's (recreational vehicles), boating, fishing and sports activities that include golf and tennis. Similarly, it notes the activities that saw significant increases in 2023, such as shooting sports and canoeing.
The report also features outdoor recreation projects from around the state that were awarded funding from the Wyoming Outdoor Recreation Collaborative Grant program and the American Rescue Plan Act, both programs facilitated by the Wyoming Office of Outdoor Recreation.
These community-based initiatives were selected for funding based on their ability to impact local economies; provide new or improved recreational opportunities; take advantage of innovative partnerships; address the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic; provide equitable access; and represent a positive quality of life for users.
Finally, the report describes two events -- the eighth annual Governor’s Match and the second annual Firearms and Outdoor Recreation Expo. The former is a shooting tournament, and the latter brings together and celebrates Wyoming-based manufacturers and other local partners.
“This current annual report helps highlight the economic importance of outdoor recreation to our state,” says Dan McCoy, director of the Jay Kemmerer WORTH Institute. “Furthermore, it is impressive to see how many communities received funding for important improvements to their quality of life.”
“We are excited to announce the release of the 2024 Wyoming Outdoor Recreation Report, which showcases our ongoing partnership with the University of Wyoming,” says Mark Tesoro, manager of the Wyoming Office of Outdoor Recreation. “This report highlights outdoor recreation’s essential role in our communities and local and state economies.”
The Jay Kemmerer WORTH Institute helps support, expand and diversify Wyoming’s economy through the outdoor recreation, tourism and hospitality industries. WORTH provides a number of services to these industries, including applied research, educational products and outreach.
Through a recent and generous $5 million gift from Jay and Karen Kemmerer, UW’s WORTH Initiative was renamed the Jay Kemmerer WORTH Institute last December.
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Research & Economic Development Division
Dept. 3355, 1000 E. University Avenue
Old Main Room 308
Laramie, WY 82071
Phone: (307) 766-5353
Fax: (307) 766-2608