Winter Issue of UWyo Magazine Highlights Innovation

The winter issue of UWyo Magazine, the University of Wyoming’s flagship publication, highlights research, innovation and entrepreneurship efforts.

“Wyoming has created a very supportive entrepreneurial culture,” says recent UW graduate Ana Acevedo, one of the founders of FINA Custom Work, a Wyoming-based tactical gear company. Acevedo and her husband, veteran Jesus Acevedo, took home the grand prize in the 2024 John P. Ellbogen $50K Entrepreneurship Competition.

“The competition teaches you how to get a business going from the bottom up,” says Ana Acevedo, who majored in marketing and sales.

Readers can learn more about student entrepreneurship as well as innovation makerspaces; National Science Foundation faculty early career grant recipients; controlled environmental agriculture; the Colorado-Wyoming Climate Resilience Engine; donor-created endowed positions; UW’s new Industry and Strategic Partnerships Office; and 4-H robotics clubs.

The winter issue of UWyo Magazine also celebrates UW’s classification as an R1 institution by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. This designation 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.

“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,” says UW President Ed Seidel. “Additionally, the prestige of R1 status traditionally has served as a magnet for people looking to work and study at the top of their fields. As a result, UW is now even more attractive to top-tier faculty and students from around the world.”

Research, innovation and entrepreneurship — the topic of this issue of UWyo Magazine — all feed into one another, and research experiences play a key role in hands-on learning.

“We are supporting more student research experiences now than ever before,” says Parag Chitnis, UW’s vice president for research and economic development. “We are engaging with more schools, businesses and organizations in Wyoming and are collaborating with more entities in Wyoming now than in the past. We are on an upward trajectory to become a research university that students and Wyomingites can proudly brag about being part of.”

In addition to feature articles, readers will enjoy sections covering university news; student-athletes; the creative economy; UW’s Research Institute at AMK Ranch in Grand Teton National Park; the UW Art Museum; the new residence halls; and alumni updates.

Read these stories and more in the winter innovation issue of UWyo Magazine at www.uwyo.edu/uwyo-mag.