REDD in the News

Research News Highlighted Outside UW

• The Laramie Boomerang published UW’s release about UW faculty member Kayla Clark representing Wyoming in “Women to Watch 2027: A Book Arts Revolution,” an international exhibition at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.
• The Jackson Hole News & Guide highlighted research on Snake River cutthroat trout being conducted by Jeff Baldock, an aquatic ecologist who got his doctorate at UW. His dissertation included several studies on Snake River cutthroat trout, including tracing the genetics of adult fish in the main stem back to their home tributaries.
• The News&Guide and People Magazine also featured UW graduate student Jared Friedman, who discovered a 1,289-year-old whitebark pine tree in Grand Teton National Park. It’s the oldest whitebark pine ever recorded.
• UW’s Survey and Analysis Center compiled data for the Wyoming Community Foundation’s new 2026 Wyoming Counts Kids Data Book, according to a Wyoming Tribune Eagle article.
• The hundreds of thousands of wild ungulates dwelling across Wyoming’s 62 million acres are worth nearly $6 billion, according to UW Associate Professor Jake Hochard. He’s scheduled to present his research to the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission today in Evanston, WyoFile reported.
  
• UW Professor Mark Clementz is one of the co-authors of a paper about the discovery of the fossilized tooth of a capybara that lived in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile almost 9 million years ago. He told EurekAlert and earth.com that what is now one of the driest places on Earth may have provided enough habitat for the water-loving rodents, even if drier land existed nearby.
• A new film about Yellowstone National Park bison migration by UW’s Wyoming Migration Initiative has drawn attention from the Billings Gazette, the Missoulian and the Sheridan Press.
• Development of a new, more accurate flu test by UW Professor Debashis Dutta and doctoral student Amit Acharzo was highlighted by the Casper Star-Tribune. Their approach combines 3D-printed dissolvable nasal swabs with a proprietary testing platform designed to improve how quickly and accurately flu infections can be identified.
• WyoFile featured female researchers who made significant wildlife discoveries in recent years while studying at UW. They include Rhiannon Jakopak, Brittany Wagler, Tayler LaSharr and Anna Ortega.
• The Jackson Hole News & Guide highlighted the research of UW graduate student Lena Wigger, who is studying how beaver ponds of different ages influence the spread of chytridiomycosis, a fungal disease, in boreal toads of the Bridger-Teton National Forest.
• Wyoming Public Radio publicized upcoming Bat Walks conducted by UW’s Biodiversity Institute around the state. This summer, the Biodiversity Institute has been hosting the guided walks in Pinedale, Cody, Lander, Sheridan, Casper and Laramie.
• Another Utah media outlet -- KUER -- highlighted the work of UW’s King Air research aircraft in that state this summer. It’s being used by a team studying the formation of ozone in the atmosphere above the Salt Lake Valley through the end of August.
• Wyoming Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio and KUNR were among the outlets reporting on a research team from Wyoming, Nevada and Idaho that is trying to make it easier to get information about critical minerals in the region. Quoted in the article are Alathea Davies, a research scientist in UW’s School of Computing, and Tyler Brown, minerals program manager in the School of Energy Resources.
• The Bozeman Daily Chronicle was among the outlets that published UW’s release about a sweeping new study on the history of North American bison. Specimens from UW’s collections played a key role in the study.
• UW Professor Ellen Currano was one of the authors of a paper in the journal Science that reconstructs the forest canopy of 56 million years ago in what is now Wyoming, during a massive and abrupt emission of carbon into the atmosphere during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). The research was highlighted by media outlets including Science Magazine and Environment Journal. For the first time, the authors of the study used fossilized leaf cells to reconstruct the tree canopy of the PETM, Earth’s most recent period of abrupt climate change.
• Charmaine Delmatier, a research associate with UW’s Rocky Mountain Herbarium, was part of a group that summited an unnamed peak in the remote, northern part of the Tetons Aug. 1. To celebrate, the group held up the U.S., Wyoming and University of Wyoming flags at the top, according to the Jackson Hole News & Guide.
• In a Cowboy State Daily article about an elk calf being freed after becoming entangled in a fence, UW Professor Kevin Monteith says wildlife-friendly fencing has been a boon for game herds across Wyoming and the West.
• Buckrail joined the list of news outlets highlighting UW’s role in a sweeping new study on the history of North American bison.
• UW Associate Professor Riley Bernard is featured in an Oil City News article about her team’s efforts to conserve the little brown bat in the face of the spread of an affliction called white-nose syndrome.
• UW graduate student Daniel Coles conducted one of the most extensive botanical inventories ever completed in the Bighorn National Forest, according to an in-depth feature in the Basin Republican Rustler. He now works as a biological science technician for the Bureau of Land Management in Lander.