Student Changemakers

UW students take on leadership roles and become key volunteers for issues close to their hearts.    

By Micaela Myers

Alyson White Eagle – Advocate and Lawyer

Alyson White Eagle embraced her role as a student changemaker at UW, taking on leadership roles, working with her tribal community and mentoring other Native American students.

“My experience at UW was filled with a lot of unique and amazing opportunities,” she says. “I’m Northern Arapaho, so my tribe is within the state of Wyoming, and because of that, I was afforded a lot of opportunities to work for the tribes and my community directly.”

White Eagle came to UW as a nontraditional student with two young daughters. She earned her bachelor’s degree in energy resource management and development (2021), then went on to law school and completed her Juris Doctor this past spring. While in law school, she took part in Professor Darrell Jackson and UW Art Museum Director Nicole Crawford’s summer education-abroad course to Europe called “Stealing Culture: The Intersection of Criminal Law and Museums,” where she viewed a headdress that belonged to her great-great-grandfather, Northern Arapaho leader Chief Yellow Calf. The headdress is at the British Museum, and the visit led to talks of repatriating the headdress to the tribe. But that advocacy is just one of the many ways White Eagle served her community and fellow students.

“I was fortunate enough to be involved in a lot of things while studying here at UW,” she says. “I was a co-founder of a mental health and wellness club in the College of Law, I researched legal questions around buffalo restoration to tribal communities, I testified in front of the Select Committee on Tribal Relations in advocacy of Native students on UW’s campus, I sat on a panel with other UW students regarding tribal co-management within the National Park System, and I was a mentor to other Native students on campus.”

White Eagle spent the summer studying for the bar exam and hopes to work in federal Indian law, making a meaningful and positive impact on tribal nations through the protection and promotion of tribal sovereignty.

“I hope that my future work will allow me to continue to learn how to give back to the communities that I come from,” she says. “I hope that I can inspire and encourage others like me to continue to pursue their dreams. I also hope that the work I do has an important and lasting impact.”

 

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Rafael Homer — Advocate and Future Doctor

Rafael Homer and his family immigrated to Wyoming from Turkey when he was 2. Watching his mom study for her Ph.D. in agronomy at UW, he fell in love with science and went on to earn dual degrees in molecular biology and finance at UW (2023) before applying to medical school in the multistate WWAMI program, which stands for Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho. Wyoming students spend two years on the UW campus, then complete two years at clinical sites throughout the region before earning their medical degrees from the University of Washington School of Medicine.

Growing up, Homer saw and experienced the lack of specialty care available to rural residents. After working for a time at Ivinson Memorial Hospital and shadowing doctors, he cemented his calling. Homer recently completed his first year of medical school. As if the rigorous coursework weren’t enough to keep him busy, he serves on the Wyoming Medical Society Board of Trustees, volunteers as a Wyoming State Science Fair judge, researches telehealth and serves as an advocate for greater access to rural specialty care.

“Health access is a big thing for me, so I’ve been working with Wyoming Medicaid to research telehealth usability amongst the Wyoming Medicaid population,” Homer says. “My family was on Medicaid for a time when I was growing up, so being able to give back to people who are in the same situation has been really meaningful.”

This summer, he presented on telehealth at the National Rural Health Association’s Annual Rural Health Conference. Homer also works with The Sun Bus mobile clinic and the American Academy of Dermatology to bring dermatology care and skin cancer screenings to rural communities. He spent the summer researching Darier disease, a rare genetic skin condition, with a mentor in Seattle.

“I want to be able to leverage my medical education and my future status as a physician to create change and, hopefully, to improve the lives of folks in Wyoming and other rural areas,” Homer says. “It doesn’t really feel like extra work — it’s more of a calling.”

As a doctor, he hopes to work in oncology, dermatology or immunology. Homer says his UW education prepared him well for his future and was the perfect size for access to research and mentorship from professors.

“It felt like everybody’s got your back and everybody’s rooting for you,” he says. “It was such a unique experience to have both the finance and molecular biology departments making me feel like I could do anything and teaching me the skills that I need to thrive and survive.”

Wyoming itself provides a supportive environment where Homer can easily reach out to leaders and make connections for his research and advocacy.

“I don’t think any other state has the environment where you can work with the people making the policy decisions,” he says. “I love Wyoming, and I love being a part of the community and doing my best to make the state better for everyone.”

 

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Johnna Arthur — Addressing Tribal Needs

Johnna Arthur earned her bachelor’s degree in sociology and Native American studies from UW (2022). She was working regular jobs that earned a paycheck but weren’t her calling when she lost both her parents six months apart.

Her father, “Big” John Smith, served as transportation director for the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes Joint Business Council on the Wind River Indian Reservation for 25 years, where he improved infrastructure, dramatically cut alcohol-involved crashes and fatalities, worked with tribal leaders to enhance seat belt compliance and more. Her mother, Elizabeth “Betty” Ridgely, served as a crime victims coordinator and helped countless folks going through difficult circumstances, including domestic violence. Arthur and her mother were in a devastating head-on car crash that took her mother’s life six months after Big John passed. The accident also left Arthur wheelchair bound. She was told she’d never walk again, but when she could, she knew it was for a reason.

The death of her parents motivated Arthur to return to school and to dedicate her life to serving her tribal communities. She’s now earning her master’s degree in public administration at UW.

During a Native Americans in Contemporary Society course, Arthur connected with fellow student Scott McClurkin, and they began discussing reservation housing issues. According to government research, more Native Americans than non-Native citizens live in housing that is overcrowded, lacks complete kitchens and bathrooms, has heating and electrical problems, or is structurally unsound. The Northern Arapaho Housing Authority estimates that the Wind River area needs 400 new homes to meet community needs.

These housing issues inspired Arthur to start Warm Valley, which became a nonprofit 2024. She wants to create sustainable multigenerational housing and eventually offer classes on homeownership, construction and more. Arthur hopes that the initial housing projects will provide housing for elders and stability for parents recently reunited with children removed by the Department of Family Services. The first phase of housing construction will include a number of A-frame homes, a circular community building, a community garden and other services.

“I put a lot of heart into this project. It’s really a dream come true for my community,” she says. “If it’s a community effort and we build on other people’s talents, I think it can go a long way.”

Arthur is working to secure grants to support Warm Valley’s efforts, including funding from the Northern Arapaho Business Council, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Wind River Cares. 

For the Arthurs, giving back is a family affair. Her husband Melvin is a research scientist at UW and does community health work on the Wind River Reservation, including helping with a medical clinic on wheels and a future mobile dental van. Johnna also earned her community health certificate and wants to improve mental health on the reservation, a topic she studied during her UW McNair Scholars research. They also sponsor a food share cabinet in UW’s Native American Education, Research and Cultural Center.

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Micah Brandt — ROTC to Army

Micah Brandt wanted a challenge and to help people, so when it came time for college, he joined the Army ROTC Cowboy Battalion at UW with the goal of commissioning as an Army officer after graduation. It proved an ambitious and rewarding route. When he wasn’t studying toward his degree in energy resource management with a concentration in professional land management, he was busy with ROTC commitments, training at 7,200 feet above sea level in the dead of winter and at Fort Knox, Ky., and presenting the colors at football games.

Brandt graduated this past spring and is now a second lieutenant in the Army. Just like his time as a student, he chose a challenging specialty. “I’m going to be going into explosive ordnance disposal, which is the bomb squad,” he says. “The biggest thing about serving for me is the opportunities to lead, to help out and to do what I can.”

When he retires from military service, Brandt hopes to work as a landman, putting to use the skills he gained at UW’s School of Energy Resources.

Brandt encourages prospective students to consider UW for its perfect size, location and opportunities: “I highly encourage people to check out Wyoming because it’s not like anywhere else.”

 

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Noelle Romer and Alexis Arp — Social Work Students Giving Back

Social work is a helping profession, so it’s no surprise that many UW social work students — on both the Laramie and Casper campuses — are passionate about giving back. Luckily, student organizations such as the Associated Students of Social Work (ASSW) provide the perfect avenue.

“Helping others and giving back are not only at the heart of social work but are typical qualities of those in the helping profession,” says senior Noelle Romer, president of the UW-Casper ASSW chapter, who plans to go on to pursue her master’s degree at UW. “Helping brings me joy. As an adult and having certain personal experiences, I am acutely aware of the impact that a helping hand can have. So, for me, being able to help and give back is extremely important and something I consider a privilege to be able to do. Casper is such an amazing community with so many existing resources to help. I always feel so proud to have been born and raised here, and to now be in a position to make a positive impact is very fulfilling.”

Last school year, as president of the club, Romer, along with her fellow social work students, decided on several goals. These included fundraising and volunteering for Natrona County nonprofits and strengthening the connections between Casper College and UW-Casper. These efforts included designing T-shirts to sell on both UW campuses, with proceeds benefiting Health Care for the Homeless and the Child Development Center of Natrona County’s Go Baby Go Wyo program. This program modifies battery-operated ride-on cars to give children with mobility impairments an opportunity to access play, exploration and social encounters. They also volunteered to help the Mercer Family Resource Center with its Dancing With the Stars of Casper fundraiser. On campus, they held social hour events for social work students and faculty from both campuses to get to know one another.

On the Laramie campus, senior Alexis Arp of Cheyenne serves as co-president of the ASSW chapter. The group led a clothing drive for the COMEA Homeless Shelter in Cheyenne, raised significant funding during its Giving Day campaign, supported the Laramie Women’s Club, led a food drive for UW’s food share pantries, and advocated for mental health and social work.

“Through my own mental health journey and personal values, I found that I have a strong sense of justice and care deeply for people and the human experience,” Arp says. “I am also very passionate about social justice because I think people are inherently good and deserving of equality and equity. It is important to me that I live a life worth being proud of, and to me that has to include working with people and systems to create a better world for everyone.”

As a social worker, she hopes to provide therapeutic services that are accessible for all with a focus on neurodivergence, addiction and substance abuse. “I would also like to lobby or hold a public office one day, to create community programs to centralize resources and to work with indigenous communities,” Arp says. “I hope to do many related plans as well, but I believe some of these goals can become interconnected with the ultimate goal of creating networks of resources that make getting help easier.”

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Student Team Builds Winning Solar House

UW’s student team took fourth place in an international competition to design zero-energy buildings. The solar-powered home they helped design in the foothills of Wyoming’s Wind River Mountains was part of the 2023 U.S. Department of Energy’s 20th annual Solar Decathlon Build Challenge.

“We’re thrilled to place so highly in an international competition. It’s a great credit to our hard-working enthusiastic students, our outstanding faculty and a tremendous partnership with the builder,” says Tony Denzer, professor and head of UW’s Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering and Construction Management. “Moreover, this was not a vanity project but a real market-ready home with the goal of introducing the zero-energy concept to Wyoming homebuyers.”

UW finished just behind Ball State University, the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay and the University of British Columbia but ahead of schools including the University of Kansas, the University of Illinois, Brigham Young University, the University of Colorado and Texas A&M University. While UW’s entry was fourth overall, it placed first in the “Comfort and Environmental Quality” category, tied for first in the “Energy Performance” and “Occupant Experience” categories, and was third in the “Embodied Environmental Impact” category.

The three-bedroom two-and-a-half-bath home sits on its 6-acre lot 10 miles southwest of Lander overlooking Red Canyon. It was built with a “minimal mountain modern” style and features a super-insulated and air-tight envelope; advanced heating systems including a heat pump and radiant floors; green building materials; and a large array of solar panels to ensure the home will produce more energy than it consumes on an annual basis. It was built and financed by Timshel Construction, led by UW alumnus Cory Toye, on land that he purchased. Toye collaborated directly with students during the design process and sold the house to a private buyer after competition.

Ten UW graduate and undergraduate students made up the team, including Ph.D. civil engineering student Emmanuel Iddio of Ibadan, Nigeria. “The American dream is rooted in independence and resilience, so why shouldn’t that extend to our buildings as well?” he says. “Learning about designing passive sustainable net-zero houses is incredibly beneficial for this generation. For homeowners, especially with rising energy costs, imagine owning a home that not only saves energy but also generates income by producing electricity.”

Iddio served as the measured contest officer and as a member of both the engineering and marketing teams. He appreciated how the project mimicked the real world — working with various specialties and the contractor.

“I sincerely hope that this competition will become a tradition, allowing future students to also benefit from such enriching experiences,” Iddio says.

It also gave him valuable experience for his future career, where he hopes to shape policy and sustainable environmental practices. “Through my expertise and experience, I seek to contribute to the formulation and execution of policies promoting renewable energy, energy efficiency and climate resilience in building practices,” Iddio says. “My objective is to actively contribute to mitigating climate change and fostering a healthier more sustainable future for generations to come.”