College of Agriculture, Life Sciences, and Natural Resources MVPs

 

Smithsonian Curator of Biological Anthropology Douglas Owsley

By Micaela Myers

It was at the University of Wyoming that Douglas Owsley first learned bones can talk — they can tell you how a person lived, what ailments they suffered and how they ultimately died. 

He’d never considered anthropology growing up in the small town of Lusk, Wyo., where he met his future wife in line at their elementary school. 

“At UW, I was introduced to things that I did not know existed,” says Owsley, who graduated with his zoology degree in 1973. “At the end of my junior year, I took Introduction to Physical Anthropology. The professor, George Gill, took an interest in me. He invited me to go out into the field, including a 1,000-year-old site in Mexico.”

At a conference, Gill introduced Owsley to a leading professor of anthropology at the University of Tennessee, where Owsley went on to pursue his master’s degree and doctorate in anthropology. He joined the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History as curator of biological anthropology in 1987.

“It’s a profession that I’ve been in for more than 50 years, and I’ve had a wonderful career teaching in universities as well as my work here as a forensic anthropologist, as a museum curator and as a research scientist,” he says. 

Owsley earned the Commander’s Award for Civilian Service from the U.S. Department of Defense for his work identifying 60 federal and civilian victims who died when American Airlines Flight 77 hit the Pentagon in 2001. He also earned the Department of the Army Commander’s Award for Civilian Service for his forensic anthropology work.

“It’s a public service helping families determine what happened to a loved one,” says Owsley, whose work has also included victims of serial killers. “The person can’t speak for themselves, so you are their voice.”

His current project involves studying early European arrivals to the Americas. 

“I’ve worked on individuals who are from early colonial sites from the 1600s such as Jamestown and St. Mary’s City — people who really helped shape America,” Owsley says.

He’s been studying remains from St. Mary’s City, Md., for the past 35 years, including identifying a man, woman and child buried in rare lead coffins. The information they can extract is all possible due to technological advancements that Owsley never dreamed of as a student. 
“We’re working on a volume that ties 17th and 18th century sites together,” he says. “We’re looking at the process of becoming America.”

 

In addition to their health and cause of death, modern-day testing can reveal what these folks ate and, based on that, where they came from and how long they lived in the New World. Through DNA and genome testing, they can even find living relatives alive today. 

“This will be my last major contribution to this field,” Owsley says. “I want the data to be accessible to future scholars and students. I want students to be able to go into questions that we’re not even thinking about and use our data to advance the scientific field. I would be ever so happy if I could see another UW student come here and work in this office one day.”

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Field Research Biologist, Educator, Conservationist Nina Zitani

 

By Brooke Ortel

 

As a graduate student at the University of Wyoming, Nina Zitani discovered and named 15 insect species previously unknown to science. Fellow entomologists have named another nine newly discovered species in her honor.

Throughout her career, Zitani has led or co-led more than 30 expeditions to remote tropical ecosystems. She’s taught field courses in the Amazon, collected thousands of research specimens and served as an expert for 16 Smithsonian Journeys travel programs, including an “Around the World by Private Jet” program. In 2021, she was elected a Fellow International of the Explorers Club in New York City. 

But her career as a scientist and international educator began at UW. 

Originally from Moorestown, N.J., Zitani moved to Laramie in 1993 to pursue a graduate degree in entomology. She’d always been fascinated by insects and, after a four-year stint working at two prominent science museums on the East Coast, Zitani was eager to expand her teaching and research skills.

She immediately hit it off with Professor Scott Shaw in the UW College of Agriculture, Life Sciences and Natural Resources “I could tell he was passionate about teaching as well as research,” she says. “He was looking for someone to send to Costa Rica to do field research on parasitic wasps. The rest is history.”

With Shaw as her adviser, Zitani earned her master’s degree in 1997, followed by a doctorate in entomology in 2003. She was also a member of the first graduating class in UW’s Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources.

On field expeditions in Costa Rica, Zitani supervised undergraduate students in addition to conducting her own research. In these lush tropical forests, Zitani’s passion for biodiversity — and biodiversity education — blossomed. 

In the field and as a graduate teaching assistant on campus, Zitani quickly became known for her innovative, enthusiastic approach to education. In 2000, she received the John P. Ellbogen Meritorious Classroom Teaching Award. 

Faculty mentors in UW’s entomology, botany and zoology departments played a key role in her success, she says. They were “top-notch professors, challenging but also understanding and forgiving at times when I made mistakes.” 

Zitani also helped Shaw launch the UW Insect Gallery, an on-campus resource that’s still open to students and researchers today. “We had K–12 students from all over Wyoming come to learn about insects,” Zitani notes. “It was something we did as a public service — that was part of being a grad student under Dr. Shaw.”

Later, Zitani became a teaching faculty member and curator of the zoological museum at Western University in Ontario. Inspired by her experience with UW’s Insect Gallery, she created the Biodiversity Gallery, an exhibition showcasing animal species from around the world at risk of extinction. 

In recognition of her efforts to expand access to the collection and raise awareness about global biodiversity loss, Zitani received the Green Award, Western’s highest sustainability honor, in 2022.

Whether she’s teaching in a classroom or on an international trip, Zitani strives to share her passion for biodiversity with students of all ages and backgrounds. “I want people to understand the complexity of global biodiversity, that it is essential for our survival, how incredibly beautiful and wondrous it is, and, importantly, that it is in decline due to various human activities,” she says. 

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Agricultural Counselor David Leishman

 

By Micaela Myers

David Leishman was destined for an international career. Raised in Italy by an Italian-American mother and Scottish father, he attended high school in Germany and university at the London School of Economics. But it was his time working at a think tank in Washington, D.C., that ultimately led him to Wyoming.  

“My wife, Karin, is originally from Sheridan,” he says. “At that time, she was working for the late Sen. Alan K. Simpson.”
The pair married in Moose, Wyo., then enrolled in master’s degree programs at University of Wyoming — Karin in English and David in agricultural economics. 

“It was an incredibly enriching environment,” Leishman says.

He worked on the feasibility of marketing Wyoming hard red winter wheat and on a project for the Wyoming Wool Growers Association. Leishman also worked as a legislative intern. After UW, he began his Ph.D. in applied economics at the University of Minnesota, eventually finishing the degree at Italy’s University of Bologna. 

Along the way, Leishman took a job as an agricultural economist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in D.C. After short-term assignments in Mexico, Brazil, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Italy, he joined the foreign service full time.

“In my first assignment at the U.S. Mission to the European Union, I spent four years in Brussels helping to negotiate agreements with European counterparts,” he says.

From there, Leishman served as the senior U.S. Agricultural Attaché for India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. He then joined USDA’s trade policy team, helping to lead bilateral negotiations with South Korea and Morocco. In 2014, Leishman was recruited to serve as director of the U.S. Agricultural Trade Offices in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Vladivostok.

“I served in Russia for almost five years, living though one of the most challenging periods in U.S.–Russian relations,” Leishman says. “Our work in agriculture was immensely rewarding, and I helped forge many lasting relationships, including with one of the largest meat companies, Miratorg. A group of Wyoming cowboys went there to work side by side with Russians, teaching them the basics of ranch management.”

Leishman also served as senior director for Africa and the Middle East and agricultural counselor at the U.S. Embassy in France before retiring from the USDA in March 2025 and moving back to Laramie. 

“We wanted to return to our roots, to be closer to family and also to embark on a new adventure,” he says. “I am so grateful to have had an unbelievable 23-year career with USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service, but truly all credit goes to UW. My UW mentors went the extra mile — believing in me, encouraging me, pushing me and inspiring me to dream big and to never give up. I am now working for ST Genetics, a global leader in livestock breeding. I still travel the world, only now I fly out of Laramie Regional Airport. I am involved in numerous partnerships, and I am especially focused on education. Our world needs more cowboys!”

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King Ranch Owners Mark Eisele and Kendall Eisele Roberts

By Maya Gilmore

Mark Eisele started working at the King Ranch in the 1970s as a hired hand. After years of hard work, he earned a partnership in the ranch and brought his whole family into the business. The King Ranch, located near Cheyenne, is co-owned by Eisele, his wife, Trudy, and their children Colton Eisele, Kaycee Eisele and Kendall Eisele Roberts. 

The Eisele family could easily keep themselves busy year-round managing their private, state and federal land. But they aren’t content with running cattle and growing alfalfa. 

During Eisele’s time as a ranch hand, the owners of the King Ranch emphasized the importance of a good education. Eisele graduated from UW in 1980 with a bachelor’s degree in agricultural mechanization, and Eisele Roberts followed in his footsteps, earning her bachelor’s in agricultural business in 2009 and her master’s in agricultural economics in 2011. 

Eisele and Eisele Roberts have built on the King Ranch’s legacy by supporting UW research and advocating for Wyoming agriculture. The ranch regularly hosts students studying subjects from range management to agricultural economics. By exploring the operation’s inner workings, UW students, faculty and staff can get a practical sense of what it means to work in agricultural production — and see the real-world impact of research projects.  

The Eisele family helps UW stay on the cutting edge of ranching research and natural resource conservation. Asked what kinds of conservation projects they’ve carried out on the King Ranch, Eisele says, “I’m trying to think of what we haven’t done.” They’ve experimented with rotational grazing, wildlife-friendly fencing, predator management strategies, renewable energy and much more. 

Adapting to new ideas is a core part of the Eisele family identity, but they also appreciate tradition. Both Eisele and Eisele Roberts are leaders in state and national livestock organizations, including the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, Wyoming Stock Growers Land Trust, Wyoming Livestock Board and National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. 

Serving in state and regional ranching organizations is a way to support other members of your community, Eisele Roberts says: “It’s coming together for bigger things than yourself. I love the sense of working together and collaborating to address issues that everybody has concerns about.” Eisele adds, “I want to be involved, and I need to be— because if you’re not at the table, you end up on the menu.”  

The King Ranch team also takes any chance it gets to appear in the media, podcasts or panel discussions. “People want to know who we are, what we raise, what they’re consuming when they have a steak on the plate,” Eisele Roberts says. 

Connections matter to the Eisele family. They’ve stayed involved with UW because they value the tight-knit community it offers. “It’s a privilege to be able to tell our story. There’s so many other alumni out there that are doing great things, and it’s great to be a part of that network,” Eisele Roberts says. 

Through the decades, the Eisele family has built up a business whose impact reaches far beyond their fences. Their efforts help new producers flourish, bring together communities and lead to new scientific understanding. 

UW was a launchpad for their accomplishments. “A good education didn’t ensure success, but it sure helped,” Eisele says.