2025-26 Wyoming Research Scholars

Austin Barth

Hometown: Burns, WY

Major: Zoology

Austin is a member of Dr. Patrick Kelley's (Zoology and Physiology) Behavioral Complexity Lab. Austin is working in Panama on a research project involving chestnut-backed antbirds. Austin's research explores the role of competition in shaping vocal behavior and spatial use among this tropical antbird species. Using a combination of detailed field observations and bioacoustic data, he is seeing how these birds alter their songs in competitive contexts and how these changes impact access to valuable resources.

Allyson Cardine

Hometown: Casper, WY

Major: Chemistry

Allyson is working with Dr. Elliott Hulley designing and synthesizing flavin derivatives to mimic Monoamine Oxidase (MAO) metabolic activity. Our project goal is to utilize these synthetic flavins to evaluate the kinetics of their oxidation chemistry with tryptamines, which are a class of compounds that include the neurotransmitter serotonin, as well as psychedelics such as psilocybin and LSD. This project is part of a larger research effort to increase fundamental understanding of the chemistry of tryptamine-based psychedelics alongside the increasing interest in their development as drug candidates.

Stephen Christensen

Hometown: Casper, WY

Major: Psychology, Biology

Stephen is working with Dr. Qian-Quan Sun and Dr. Erin Harrington, looking at strategy use as a stress reliever in relation to PM in older adults. 

John Crider

Hometown: Sheridan, WY

Major: Mechanical Engineering, Minor in Electrical Engineering

John is working with Dr. Jonathan Naughton on combining time variant and field range data for a robust analysis of jet flow. He is also working with Dr. Ankit Saxena on developing particle dampening technologies to reduce seismic vibrations in small mobile nuclear reactors.

Camille Gott

Hometown: Colorado Springs, CO

Major: Microbiology

Camille Gott is an undergraduate assistant in the Hoberg Research group. She is currently working on developing organic molecules for the specialized extraction of rare-earth elements. 

Brody Greene

Hometown: Beaver, PA

Major: Mechanical Engineering, Minor in Honors

Brody is working with Dr. Xiang Zhang (Mechanical Engineering) to examine the behavior of advanced composite materials in solid modeling software. Simultaneously, Brody is studying how to produce these materials via experimental 3D printing. 

Riley Heindl

Hometown: Lovell, WY

Major: Wildlife & Fisheries Biology & Management

Gustavo Hernandez

Hometown: Rock Springs, WY

Major: Physiology

Gustavo works with Dr. Emily Schmitt (Kinesiology and Health) and studies how scheduled exercise re-entrains disrupted circadian rhythms—measuring SCN activity markers (c-Fos, NPY, AVP) in mice—to boost overall health.

Lily Marie Hitchcock

Hometown: Lander, WY

Major: Physiology

Lily Marie works in the Alex French Lab studying psychedelic signal transduction in mice as it relates to alcohol use disorder. The lab aims to differentiate the therapeutic and hallucinogenic pathways of various psychedelics to pave the way for their clinical applications in addiction treatment.

Ainsley Hokanson

Hometown: Gillette, WY

Major: Molecular Biology

Ainsley is working with the Schoborg Lab to understand how mitotic spindle proteins contribute to microcephaly. She uses fruit flies as a model to study brain development at a cellular level.

Wren Hybertson

Hometown: Boulder, CO

Major: Environment & Natural Resources, Environmental Systems Science, Geographic Information Science

Wren is working with Dr. David Tank and Marguerite Trost in the Rocky Mountain Herbarium.

Samantha Killmer

Hometown: Portage, MI

Major: Biology and Spanish

Samantha is a member of Dr. Riley Bernard's research lab, investigating the efficacy and accuracy of AI software in determining bat use and activity at cave roosts in Wyoming. This work is a component of a broader research project aimed at filling data gaps in the ecology of the Townsend’s Bigeared bat. 

Jordan Kinney

Hometown: Cheyenne, WY

Major: Animal Science with a Pre-Vet concentration

Jordan is working with Dr. Mariela Srednik to study Mycoplasma in dogs through nasal swabs. In this research, she is investigating if Mycoplasma is apart of the natural bacterial flora or if it is infectious. 

Skyler LaRosa

Hometown: Moose, WY

Major: Wildlife & Fisheries Biology and Management

Skyler is working with Dr. William Fetzer  and PhD student Tristan Blechinger to look at the age and growth patterns of various White Sucker and Utah Sucker populations in Wyoming's major reservoirs. She's interested in how different these fish populations are in response to environmental conditions, management actions, and food web structures. 

Ryley Maurer

Hometown: Hulett, WY

Major: Animal & Vetrinary Sciences, Biology

Ryley is working with Dr. Jeremy Block (Animal Science) to study how embryo dissociation - the separation of an 8-cell embryo into either individual cells or pairs of cells - affects subsequent development and differentiation. Her work also involves assessing whether treatment with a growth factor, insulin like growth factor-1, improves embryo development following dissociation.

Kathryn McCarty

Hometown: Casper, WY

Major: Anthropology, Music

Under the guidance of Dr. James Johnson, Kathryn’s research focuses on the spatial analysis of mortuary practices, specifically burial mounds, in eastern Europe. She is also working in the field in Wyoming to explore how prehistoric people lived.   

Reuben McGuire

Hometown: Cheyenne, WY

Major:  Mechanical Engineering

Reuben is working with Dr. Xiang Zhang in the Computations for Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Laboratory in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Wyoming. Reuben is currently developing and implementing real-time monitoring and control algorithms and hardware to advance an energy-efficient composites printing technique based on a novel curing strategy called frontal polymerization.

Sam Mitchell

Hometown: Phoenix, AZ

Major:  Mechanical Engineering

Sam is working with Dr. Ankit Saxena on developing particle damping technologies and charecterizing their effectiveness by examining their audio signatures.

Logan Opsal

Hometown: Cheyenne, WY

Major:  Biology; Wildlife and Fisheries Biology and Management

Logan is working with Dr. William Fetzer to evaluate resource use and niche partitioning of stocked salmonid species in several Wyoming reservoirs using stable isotopes.

Riley Ovard

Hometown: Evanston, WY

Major: Environmental System Science; Environment and Natural Resources

Riley is working with Dr. Grete Gansauer. Riley's research aims to better understand the network of food security organizations in Laramie, WY, and the structure of their relationships. The project focuses on social capital, how it is expressed through the 'community food network', and identifying the key strengths of the system.

Olivia Poore

Hometown: Douglassville, PA

Majors: Environmental Systems Science, Environment and Natural Resources, and Wildlife Biology

Olivia is working with Annabella Helman in the Goheen lab.

Cassidy Powers

Hometown: Cheyenne, WY

Majors: Mechanical Engineering

Working with Dr. Ankit Saxena on the development of a dual-arm robotic system with integrated sensors for nondestructive structural integrity analysis of materials.

Hannah Qualm

Hometown: Buffalo, WY

Major: Wildlife and Fisheries Biology and Management

Hannah is working with Rebecca Levine in the Monteith Shop. She is processing and analyzing camera collar videos of moose near Meeteetse, Wyoming, to study the activity budgets and behavioral states of female moose.

Ted Rittle

Hometown: Laramie, WY

Major: Biology

Ted is currently working with Masters student Sam Peña in Dr. Sarah Collins's lab, looking at harmful cyanobacteria blooms in Wyoming lakes, the factors that influence the prevalence of these blooms, and the distribution of the cyanobacterial species and the toxins they release!

Marjie Schmitt

Hometown: Mitchell, NE

Major: Physiology

Marjie is working with Dr. Nellie Bruns in the HEART lab, Studying the effects of PAD2 on the female aging heart. The lab uses new mouse models, histology, and echocardiography to quantify changes in heart function with age and how this changes with loss of PAD2.  

Kiara Schofield

Hometown: Gillette, WY

Major: Molecular Biology and Microbiology 

Kaitlyn Elayne Schultz

Hometown: Sheridan, WY

Major: Astrophysics & Physics

Kaitlyn is working with Dr. Daniel Dale. Kaitlyn's current project is to analyze the ages of stellar populations (individual stars) inside bubbles in NGC 628 (a nearby spiral galaxy). 

Max Seibold

Hometown: Parker, CO

Major: Chemistry, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences

Max conducts research in Dr. Thomas Boothby's Lab. 

Christopher Taylor

Hometown: Green River, WY

Majors: Wildlife and Fisheries Biology/Management

Christopher is working with Dr. Lusha Tronstad to see how Beaver Dam Analogs (man-made beaver dams) affect native fish diets, species abundance, and distribution in the Muddy Creek watershed in Southern Wyoming.

Kyra Waldron

Hometown: Jackson, WY

Major: Physiology

Kyra is working with Dr. Tak Suyama in the chemistry department. Her research is focused on the discovery of novel antifungals from the tardigrade microbiome.

Lucas Wall

Hometown: Laramie, WY

Major: Molecular Biology

Lucas is working with Dr. Dan Wall (Molecular Biology). Lucas is working with a virus that infects a type of bacteria called streptococcus mutans. These bacteria are the leading microorganism responsible for dental decay. 

Josephine Walton

Hometown: Sheridan, WY

Major: Chemistry and Biology

Josephine is working under Dr. Thomas Boothby in the Wyoming Water Bears Lab. Josie is studying how the gut microbiome of Ramazzottius varieornatus contributes to its survival under extreme stress, such as radiation and desiccation.   

Isabelle Wasseen

Hometown: Rock Springs, WY

Major: Zoology

. Isabelle is currently researching with Dr. Sreejayan Nair with the School of Pharmacy studying neuroinflammation. Isabelle is currently working on projects aimed at targeting the iRhom2 protein in Diabetic Neuropathy and in targeting this protein in neuroinflammation looking at how this impacts symptoms of cognitive decline.  

Kira Welch

Hometown: Shreveport, LA

Major: Zoology and Art

Kira is working with Dr. Sean Harrington, looking at hybridization within Milk snake groups from Kansas, and studying their ancestry.