SPOTLIGHTING FACULTY AND STUDENT RESEARCH AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING
Discovering answers to world issues
WINTER 2022
INSIDE 01 / A Message From Provost Carman 02 / Putting Students to the Test Professor, students aid Wyoming Public Health with COVID-19 testing. 04 / Mission: Not impossible UW Innovation Wyrkshop makes PPE for front-line workers during mask shortage. 07 / Going the Distance UW team studies the effects of social distancing on the economy. 09 / A Deeper Dive UW professor, research team examine variables raising vulnerability to COVID-19. 11 / Learning the Stats UW statistics professor, students create data tool to analyze spread of COVID-19. 14 / A Lot of Buzz UW researchers study Western bumblebee population to inform decisions about federal protection. 16 / Preserving the Past AHC collects stories and artifacts of the COVID-19 pandemic for future generations to study. 18 / A Whole New World UW professor’s research opens doors for potential medical advancements. 20 / What’s the Hesitation? UW economists work to eliminate vaccine hesitancy with improved messaging.
University of Wyoming Archaeological Field School provides professional-level training in field research methods to students at any educational level or background. While working at the 13,000-year-old Le Prele Mammoth kill site in Converse County, Wyo., students learn to identify stone tools and debris, careful excavation methods, water screening, mapping and data recording with a total station. UW doctoral student Sarah Allaun examines and labels microflakes collected in the screening process.
FROM THE PROVOST I’m pleased to present the 2021-22 edition of Innovations. This year the primary focus of Innovations is the extraordinary and diverse research and entrepreneurial activity conducted by UW faculty, students, staff, and the citizens of Wyoming to help address the challenges of navigating the COVID pandemic. When Laramie health care workers were short of PPE at the beginning of the pandemic, student volunteers stepped up and designed and produced hundres of face coverings with UW 3D printers in the Innovation Wyrkshop maker space. Inspired by the example of our students, many members of the community made their 3D printers available to expand capacity. WWAMI Director and Associate Professor Brant Schumaker leveraged his expertise in infectious disease and worked with the Wyoming Department of Health to organize and expand COVID testing capacity. He recruited a team of undergraduate students to work in the lab and meet the dramatic increase in testing capacity that was needed. The students, in turn, gained unique experience in epidemiology. Faculty and students in the Department of Economics mobilized quickly and conducted two major research projects that shed light on strategies for managing the pandemic. Associate Professor Linda Thunstrom and a team of faculty and graduate students examined financial tradeoffs of lockdowns versus the projected loss of life that would occur in the absence of lockdowns. Graduate student Madison Ashworth and her colleagues gained international attention for their study of the most effective messaging for encouraging individuals to get vaccinated. Intriguingly, their study revealed effective messaging for most people around the world was not convincing to the citizens of Wyoming. Petroleum Engineering Associate Professor Pejman Tahmasebi applied his knowledge of managing large data sets to COVID by capturing and analyzing the huge volume of pandemic data that was suddenly being generated. His work provided important early evidence that individuals 65 and older, as well those with diabetes, were disproportionately at risk of death if infected by COVID. Statistics Professor Tim Robinson and his students also helped distill huge amounts of data by developing a data dashboard for the Wyoming Department of Health. Archivists Sara Davis and Rachel Gattermeyer at UW’s American Heritage Center took the initiative to begin collecting and archiving artifacts related to the pandemic. In the future, such artifacts will no doubt be studied by historians to understand the context of the global pandemic that still rages on. As impressive and important as these examples of UW’s contributions to COVID research are for the world, the nation, and the state, it is also important to remember that faculty and students remain actively engaged in their fundamental scholarly activities. For example, Molecular Biology Professor David Fay and his research team study the genetics of nematode worms, extremely important but tiny little critters that are found everywhere on earth from the highest mountains to the deepest ocean trenches. And Zoology and Physiology Ph.D. student Christy Bell is conducting critically needed research on bumblebee species in Wyoming and the Mountain West. Dubbed the “bee queen” by her colleagues, Christy’s work is documenting the troubling decline in bumblebee populations in the West and may lay the groundwork for their ultimate protection through the Endangered Species Act. As UW pursues its goal of being recognized as a Carnegie R1 research university, research and scholarly and creative activity—especially by graduate students—will become increasingly prominent and critical to our mission. As an important step in this direction, later this year UW will formally establish a Graduate School and move to its newly renovated offices in Knight Hall. Graduate student enrollment—and particularly Ph.D. enrollmentis on a very positive trajectory at UW. With the launching of the new School of Computing and coming grand opening of the spectacular Science Initiative Building, many exciting new research opportunities are on the horizon! – Kevin Carman, Provost and Executive Vice President
SPOTLIGHTING FACULTY AND STUDENT RESEARCH AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING Winter 2022, Volume 1, Number 1 Office of Academic Affairs 1000 E. University Ave. Dept. 3302 Laramie, WY 82071-2000 Provost and Executive Vice President Kevin Carman Senior Vice Provost Tami Benham-Deal Vice Provost, Graduate Education Jim Ahern Vice Provost, Strategic Planning and Initiatives, Anne Alexander Vice Provost, Undergraduate Education, Steven Barrett Interim Vice Provost, Digital, Distance and Online Education Benjamin Cook Vice Provost Global Engagement, Isadora Helfgott Vice Provost Enrollment Management Kyle Moore Editor Julie Sheldon Contributing Writer Taryn Bradley Graphic Design Michelle Eberle, Emily Edgar, Brittny Wroblewski and Hallie Davis Photography All photos by Ted Brummond and Kyle Spradley unless otherwise noted. Innovations Magazine is published by the Office of Academic Affairs for alumni, friends and constituents. Mailing addresses are provided by the University of Wyoming Foundation. To change your mailing address and/ or contact information, please send email to foundation@uwyo.edu. The university is committed to equal opportunity for all persons in all facets of the university’s operations. All qualified applicants for employment and educational programs, benefits and services will be considered without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability or protected veteran status or any other characteristic protected by law and university policy.
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PUTTING STUDENTS TO THE TEST Professor, students aid Wyoming Public Health with COVID-19 testing Dr. Brant Schumaker is no stranger to infectious diseases and pandemics. As an epidemiologist, veterinarian and director of WWAMI, the University of Wyoming’s medical education program, it’s what he studies for a living. So, when the COVID-19 pandemic began, Schumaker was well equipped and prepared to meet the challenge. It’s his combined knowledge of animals and infectious diseases that allows him to have a wide understanding of COVID-19. “COVID-19 is a zoonotic disease, which means it was started in animal populations. As a veterinarian, we’re trained from day one to look at disease on a multi-species level. We really buy into the concept of one health, which is the thought that the health of animals, humans and the environment are all interconnected,” he said. In addition to his many roles, at the beginning of the pandemic Schumaker was also an associate professor in the Department of Veterinary Science. As irony would have it, Schumaker was teaching an epidemiology class when the pandemic started. One of Schumaker’s former graduate students, who works for the Wyoming Department of Health’s laboratory, approached him and expressed a need for people to work in the lab short term to help with the increased volume of COVID-19 testing. Ask anyone at the University of Wyoming, and they’ll tell you the institution prides itself on giving students real-world experience. While pandemics aren’t ideal, they do happen, and Schumaker’s epidemiology students were about to get the real-world experience of a lifetime. “We more or less deployed our entire research lab to the Department of Health to help them with their testing efforts,” he said. 2 • Innovations
Schumaker collected data and helped prioritize sick patients’ samples while his students aided the Wyoming Department of Health’s public lab with COVID-19 testing for about three months. By the end of the semester and the students’ time at the lab, they had assisted with testing over 16,000 samples. “You couldn’t ask for a more practical training experience in a real-world environment than being deployed to a pandemic,” Schumaker said. “It was extremely meaningful to watch our team be able to help in that capacity. I’m really proud of them.” The students who helped with the COVID-19 testing efforts included Chris Anderson, Meagan Soehn, Kelsie Bowcutt, Samyr Wissar, Callie Klinghagen, Matios Indaylalu as well as UW alumni Taylor Fearing and Chayse Rowley. “One of the best things about the University of Wyoming is the opportunity to include undergraduate students in practical real-world research and service. About half a dozen
“
One of the best things about the University of Wyoming is the opportunity to include undergraduate students in practical real-world research and service.” - Dr. Brant Schumaker
of the students who worked on testing were undergraduate students,” Schumaker said. Schumaker’s involvement with the COVID-19 pandemic far exceeds just the early stages—he’s also been involved with vaccination rollouts in Albany County. “A large collaborative team of people in Albany County worked together to get our community vaccinated. That included partners at Ivinson Memorial Hospital, the county Department of Health, faculty throughout the College of Health Sciences and myself,” he said. Schumaker and those he collaborated with launched a mass vaccine site at the old armory building in Laramie, which has significant history when it comes to vaccinations. “That was the same site used for distributing the polio vaccine about 50 years prior. The same site that was involved in a really important vaccination effort to eradicate polio in the United States was then also used for COVID-19, which was really exciting,” Schumaker said. During the initial stages of the vaccine rollout, Schumaker placed individuals into vaccine tiers that were put together by the Wyoming Department of Health as well as spent time helping direct individuals at the vaccination site. “Helping with the traffic of people at the vaccine clinic site was probably the most rewarding aspect of working on a pandemic. There was a real sense of community, and we were all going to be a part of putting the pandemic to rest,” he said. “My only regret is that not more people opted to participate in getting vaccinated.” As for his involvement at the university, Schumaker played a role in advocating for policies to help reduce the spread of the virus, tracking UW’s case numbers and conducting student and faculty surveillance testing. Needless to say, Schumaker’s work throughout the pandemic was widespread. Through his work, he has helped thousands upon thousands of individuals in the Wyoming community. “The COVID-19 pandemic has basically been the epidemiologist Super Bowl,” he said. “I felt really strongly called to serve out a sense of civic responsibility to help in any way I could for the pandemic response.” Although many may feel the pandemic is over and done,
PHOTO BY JULIE SHELDON
Brant Schumaker—epidemiologist, veterinarian and director of WWAMI— and his students continue to collaborate with the Wyoming Department of Health during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Schumaker cautions that we’re not quite in the clear yet. The spikes in COVID-19 cases the United States and Wyoming are seeing are a direct result of vaccine hesitancy, he said. “There is no single tool that is more effective at preventing severe disease and hospitalization from COVID-19 than getting vaccinated,” he said. “All of our living presidents, nearly 100% of all senators and congressmen, all Republican and Democratic governors have chosen to be vaccinated. It is the best tool that we have to protect our society and those among us who are not well enough or old enough to be vaccinated.” Working as an epidemiologist during a global pandemic is a stressful job, to say the least. However, Schumaker feels a sense of pride and purpose in his work to keep the community safe and healthy. “I would say that I’m probably too close to the pandemic right now to be overly reflective because we’re still in it, but I think it will be one of the more meaningful events in my life once it is truly over,” he said. Innovations • 3
MISSION:
NOT IMPOSSIBLE UW Innovation Wyrkshop makes PPE for front-line workers during mask shortage
Personal protection equipment (PPE) was hard to come by at the start of the pandemic. For many places around the world, providing health care workers with the PPE they needed to keep themselves safe while facing the overwhelming surge of patients requiring urgent medical attention was nothing short of difficult. Difficult is not impossible, though. Luckily for the state of Wyoming, the University of Wyoming’s makerspace, the Innovation Wyrkshop, alongside the Wyoming Technology Coronavirus Coalition (WTCC) were ready to lend a hand in designing, producing and distributing PPE. “A makerspace is an experiential learning lab where people can come in and access tools that they might not have access to at home,” said Tyler Kerr, the Innovation Wyrkshop coordinator. Much of the equipment in the lab, including 3D printers, laser printers, sewing machines and wood shop tools, can be expensive and require a lot of power and space, which prevents most people from having machines of their own. “It’s our role to provide access to that technology and then teach people how to use it,” Kerr said. “Makerspaces have a pretty tremendous value across the spectrum,” Kerr said. “It’s certainly a place for hobbies but also for prototyping, entrepreneurial design and producing the next great ideas.” Through the national and statewide PPE shortage, the Innovation Wyrkshop without a doubt proved that point.
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At the early stages of the pandemic, Kerr and his makerspace team were approached by a nurse from a Cheyenne hospital who had 3D printed PPE using his home printer. He figured that if he could print one mask on his personal printer, the makerspace with eight 3D printers could make a lot more. “People needed PPE. We could make PPE. So, the next logical step was we will make PPE,” said Victoria Evans, a pharmacy student and makerspace educator. So, the Innovation Wyrkshop, located in the Engineering, Education and Research Building on UW campus, got to work, collaborating with the College of Engineering and Applied Science to develop PPE. They began printing on a Friday, and over the span of one weekend, the makerspace had produced over 200 masks for the Cheyenne Regional Medical Center. “We had to run all the 3D printers nonstop in order to make 200 masks by the following Monday,” Evans said. “I think we ended up making more masks than the hospital wanted, but it was a pretty effective way for us to prove that not only could we do this, but we could do it fast and efficiently.” When the word spread of what the Innovation Wyrkshop had done for the Cheyenne Regional Medical Center, people started reaching out willing to lend their own personal 3D printers to the cause. Thanks to private makers in the community, the Innovation Wyrkshop added another 13 3D printers to its space. “Our whole shop was filled with 3D printers to the point where we actually ran out of counterspace,” Kerr said.
Opposite page: Ben Monger, staff and student of energy systems. Left: Tyler Kerr, makerspace coordinator in the Innovation Wyrkshop.
Not only were people willing to lend their personal machines, but it brought many makers across the state out of the woodwork wanting to get involved. The Innovation Wyrkshop had been a part of the WTCC, a grassroots organization of Wyoming makers looking to help during the pandemic with their makerspace skillsets. With help from different members of the WTCC, the Innovation Wyrkshop was now armed with 25 in-house printers and 31 other makerspaces across the state of Wyoming, all helping to mass produce PPE. However, with makers printing across the state, a new question arose of how to best collect and deliver the needed PPE as quickly and efficiently as possible.
With the efficiency of the 3D printing pony express, the Innovation Wyrkshop and WTCC were unstoppable, so they thought, why stop there? At first the focus was just on providing health care workers with PPE, but as the pandemic progressed, more people needed access to masks and face shields, such as dentists and poll workers during the election. “Dentists were the last in line to receive PPE. During the pandemic, dentistry was not considered emergency work, even though there are dental emergencies. They weren’t getting face shields that properly fit their loupes,” Kerr said. Loupes are the special eyeglasses dentists wear that are equipped with a light and magnifying glass to help them see into patients’ mouths. Up until that point, face shields were not made to accommodate these glasses, so the Innovation Wyrkshop started printing and distributing shields that were. Additionally, with the pandemic falling on an election year, the Innovation Wyrkshop printed and supplied Wyoming poll workers with shields to protect them while helping people cast their votes. By the end of the project, the Innovation Wyrkshop had produced 5,701 out of 7,554 pieces of PPE, including masks, shields and visors the WTCC had made for health care workers, dentists and poll workers across the state of Wyoming.
A group of student volunteers uses 3D printers to produce hospital masks during the shortage caused by the coronavirus outbreak.
“We had drivers who were willing to transport PPE to certain locations across the state so that we didn’t have to delay delivery by shipping it,” Kerr said. “For example, we would have somebody drive halfway to Casper, and then someone from Casper would meet them and bring the PPE back and distribute it.
We jokingly called it the 3D printing pony express.” WATCH A “COWBOY COFFEE” EPISODE ABOUT THE INNOVATION WYRKSHOP’S EFFORTS TO PRODUCE PPE AT BIT.LY/3D-PRINTING-MASKS
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“People tend to think makerspaces are just for hobbies—like board games, toys and fun projects,” Kerr said. “One thing the pandemic did demonstrate worldwide though was that these creative communities have a significant role in addressing everything from supply chain issues to rapid prototyping.” Kerr and Evans stress that this project would not have been possible without the help of the 31 statewide makers, those who lent their personal 3D printing equipment and the rest of the Innovation Wyrkshop team. In addition to Kerr and Evans, the Innovation Wyrkshop team was made up of Shannon Linch, Dee Retting, Ben Monger, Ana Flores, Zack Woith, TJ Barker, Lars Kotthoff and Tyler Heckenlively. “Makerspaces have tremendous value across the spectrum. They’re not just for engineers, they’re not just for hobbyists, they can be for health care workers, dentists and poll workers too,” Kerr said. Victoria Evans (pharmacy major) from Green River, Wyo., creating Makerspace Access Pass Badges.
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GOING THE DISTANCE UW team studies the effects of social distancing on the economy.
Throughout the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, government and policymakers were faced with a number of difficult decisions. At the pandemic’s start, one of the most central questions was whether or not the United States should enter a full lockdown. While staying home and shutting down businesses would save lives, it would also cause great damage to the economy. Would the cost of the lockdown outweigh the benefits? The question was addressed by a group of researchers at the University of Wyoming’s Department of Economics, including Linda Thunstrom, Stephen Newbold, David Finnoff and Jason Shogren, as well as Ph.D. student Madison Ashworth. “This study was essential because it was clear that the social distancing policies that were implemented or being considered by policy makers, such as physical distancing and shutting businesses and schools down, had severe consequences for the economy, and it wasn’t clear those consequences were justified, even if they would clearly have public health benefits,” Thunstrom said. While the question of social distancing measures raised much debate across political party lines, epidemiologists and businesses, the researchers really had no idea what their research would indicate. “We didn’t know what the answer was going to be,” said Newbold. “We wanted to let the result fall where it would fall and report it in the most straightforward way possible. We thought that was the most useful service we could do at the time, because there were so many questions. Different people had different ideas about where the answer would fall.” The research team utilized computer modeling and simulations to estimate the costs and benefits of social distancing measures that considered variables such as the value of statistical life, complexities of the modern economy, how the gross domestic product changes over time, human behavior as well as epidemiological information about the virus. “Our model focused on the economic costs and benefits. For the costs, the model considered how much employment and income would be lost. For the benefits, the model considered what would happen under a completely uncontrolled scenario, as if we would have reacted to the novel coronavirus like the seasonal flu with no extra control measures. How many people would we expect to fall ill or die under such an uncontrolled scenario versus an alternative scenario involving widespread social distancing?” Newbold said. After the model was run, the research team compared the dollar amount the impact of a lockdown would have on the economy to the dollar value assigned to the estimated number of lives that would be saved through a lockdown. While they considered a range of possible scenarios, their most plausible estimate suggested that social distancing measures would
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provide social net benefits of $5.2 trillion. In short, the social distancing measures were worth it. “That doesn’t mean that the economy would do better with lockdowns,” Thunstrom said. “On the contrary, our best estimates suggest that the economy would still do worse with lockdowns but the lives that we saved with lockdowns would be so many that it was still worth it to implement those policies.” To estimate the benefits of the lives saved from lockdowns and compare those to the costs, the researchers had to assign a dollar value to each human life saved. While it might sound immoral and a bit odd to do so, this is something economists work with quite often. The value of a statistical life is a number used by federal government agencies when evaluating policies that involve risk to human lives. “The numbers we used in our analysis, such as the statistical value of human life, allow for us to be transparent and allow for the research to be replicated,” Shogren said. “There’s nothing up our sleeves, there’s no magic involved or politics. It’s just science. We’re using the data we have to estimate the outcome of policies and provide much-needed information to people who have to make hard policy decisions—whether that’s to enforce social distancing and stay-at-home orders or some other policy.” Something that was of utmost importance to the research team was the transparency and replicability of the study and findings. There were valid opinions and arguments for and against lockdowns, but the team prioritized a nonpartisan, unbiased, economic approach to the discussion. Pulling off this study was no small feat, either. During a pandemic, there isn’t time to conduct research at your leisure. The team wanted to make sure it was done as quickly and efficiently as possible so that those who needed information to base their difficult decisions on had it in a timely manner. “It was very much a team effort. There is no part of our team that could have been missing—we just wouldn’t have been able to pull it off. I don’t think we’ve ever produced an academic study in such a short amount of time,” Thunstrom said. Thunstrom, Shogren, Finnoff, Newbold and Ashworth also want to stress the importance of economic research to evaluate prospective policies to help determine if they are beneficial to society overall. “We want to integrate economics with the natural sciences to get better policy analysis, because people affect nature and vice versa. We also want to stress the policy analysis should be transparent, accountable and debatable—especially on something as important as this. Those two things are fundamental to what we do here at the University of Wyoming and in the Department of Economics,” Shogren said. The group continues to do research on COVID-19 related topics and contribute and engage in community efforts. This study informed policymakers about the costs and benefits of a lockdown before the vaccine. However, with a vaccine now available for COVID-19, the research team is confident that as of now, the best thing society can do to help the economy is get vaccinated. “We are engaged in committees and organizations within the communities to contribute knowledge about policies that might increase vaccination. We’ve used what we’ve learned from our research to directly engage with community efforts,” Thunstrom said.
UW professor, research team examine variables raising vulnerability to COVID-19
Fred Rogers once said, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’” In the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s safe to say there were
helpers all around. Whether the impact was small or large, overt or covert, there were many people willing to help. Without these helpers, it’s hard to say where we would be in the pandemic. Pejman Tahmasebi, an assistant professor of petroleum engineering
and civil engineering at the University of Wyoming, can easily be defined as a helper during the virus’ outbreak. Tahmasebi wondered how he could use his expertise and skill set as an academic to help others during this uncertain time.
Pejman Tahmasebi, an assistant professor of petroleum engineering and civil engineering. COURTESY PHOTO
“Most of the things that we do in my field are geology, civil engineering, water, or energy. At the same time, though, we are always dealing with big data,” he said. Big data is just what it sounds like— an extremely high volume of often complex data that cannot be analyzed in the same way traditional, smaller sets of information can. “For us, big data is not something new, and we have a lot of techniques that can be used to analyze complex data and extract meaningful patterns. So, given that knowledge and what we do in our field, we can look at COVID-19 and see it as a problem that an be interpreted as big data,” Tahmasebi said. Knowing there was something he could do to help, Tahmasebi turned to ongoing research. At the time, he noticed that most research surrounding COVID-19 dealt with actionable and controllable factors that could suppress the spread of the virus, such as staying home, wearing a mask and socially distancing. While these factors are important for keeping ourselves and others safe and healthy, current research “greatly ignored some pre-existing factors that can also have a great impact on COVID-19,” he said. Tahmasebi and his team focused on 12 pre-existing health, environmental and economic variables that could influence one’s vulnerability to COVID-19. Some of the variables used in the study included obesity, diabetes, individuals aged 65 and over, CO2 per capita emission and gross national income.
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Every day, the research team would collect 14 countries’ COVID-19 data from reliable data sources such as World Health Organization, the World Bank and the Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research of the European Commission. After data collection was complete, Tahmasebi analyzed it to explore any correlations that might exist between their variables and COVID-19 deaths. The research team found that two of their variables rendered significant correlations—diabetes and individuals aged 65 and older. In other words, the research indicated individuals with diabetes or aged 65 and older are more susceptible to experiencing grave side effects of COVID-19, specifically death. “We just wanted people to know that in addition to the controllable factors, such as socially distancing, pre-existing parameters that we have no control over are also important and can actually give us some warning,” he said. “For example, you cannot change the diabetic ratio in a place, but those people should be more careful and take extra precautions.” Tahmasebi and his team published their work and results to an archive, which makes it free and accessible to anyone, anywhere. “We strongly believe that this information is something that should be accessible to everyone,” he said. Tahmasebi and his team hope that with the research and findings being available to the public, individuals who identify with those parameters can take
We strongly believe that this information is something that should be accessible to everyone. further necessary precaution on top of regular precautions such as wearing a mask and socially distancing. “After we had published it, a few media sources overseas talked about our research and found it very interesting. When you see that reflection from society, you can say, ‘Ok, I think I’ve done something meaningful,’ and I’m pretty happy and proud of that,” he said. So it’s true—helpers are everywhere. Sometimes they’re working the front lines, sometimes they’re behind the scenes and sometimes, if you’re lucky, they’re in the engineering college at the University of Wyoming conducting research that could potentially save lives.
LEARNING THE UW statistics professor, students create data tool to analyze spread of COVID-19 Innovations • 11
The mention of statistics on a college campus may be responded to by a few groans and potentially a couple of eye rolls. Students who take the course often gripe that what they’re learning about has no relevance to the real world— such as the probability of drawing red and blue balls out of a bucket. “Who does that? Who sits around and draws balls out of a bucket and wants to know the statistical probability of drawing a certain color?” said Tim Robinson, a University of Wyoming statistics professor. Fortunately, for Robinson and his students, statistics often deals with real-life data. More recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has not only provided them with real data, but also a task that impacts epidemiologist and health care decision making. Data can be confusing, especially if there is a lot of it or you’re not able to discern what it means for yourself. This was a common issue that arose during the COVID-19 pandemic. With tens of thousands of cases popping up all over the nation every day, the numbers became overwhelming for many epidemiologists and health care providers who were trying to control and monitor the virus’ spread. This was true for the public health lab at the Wyoming Department of Health, too. Needing assistance, the lab reached out to Robinson, who at the time served as Wyoming’s WWAMI Regional Medical Education Program director and has a background in biostatistics. WWAMI, an acronym for the five states it spans, Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho, is a medical program based at the University of Washington School of Medicine that provides medical education to schools without preexisting programs. “We have data coming in from lots of different places,” Robinson said. “We are trying to stitch that data together so it can inform what epidemiologists and health policy makers do and communicate what they’re seeing as far as trends within the state.” Robinson calls this type of work data science, which is using data to ultimately inform decision making. In this case, Robinson was tasked with cleaning and analyzing COVID-19 data, then implementing it so that health care providers and epidemiologists could make decisions on what to do about the spread. Robinson partnered with Pavel Chernyavskiy, a former member of the mathematics and statistics department, and Colton Zier, a recent statistics graduate student, to brainstorm a tool that would provide important COVID-19 information to those who need it in an easy, digestible format. Chernyavskiy, Zier and Robinson developed an interactive tool that allows for users to retrieve current COVID-19 information by clicking on areas of the map, which are 12 • Innovations
organized by county. “We did this through a public-facing app that’s designed to visualize, track and quantify geographic disparities, COVID-19 incidence and mortality rates,” Robinson said. While the tool was created specifically for the rural areas of Wyoming to combat some of the uncertainty that comes with virus spread in smaller populations, the map spreads across the entire United States where users can look at information surrounding incidence of new COVID-19 cases.
Tim Robinson, a statistics professor at the University of Wyoming
“I think that my love for teaching, my love for Wyoming and working with students are what make this project so special to me, because it just ties together all of those things while we’re serving the state.”
— Tim Robinson
Another feature of the tool, and arguably the most important one, is its ability to predict future outbreaks before they happen, Robinson said. “I think that it’s important to think about prediction because it gives folks like hospitals and different health care providers an opportunity to be prepared if we do start to see spikes,” he said. “This tool hopefully can let folks know before the spikes occur instead of just reacting once high rates are starting to be observed.” The map has proven to be an invaluable tool to the Wyoming Department of Health as the researchers want to continue to learn about and monitor COVID-19. As the virus has evolved, so has the need for new information. “Now there’s an interest in the variants that are occurring and
whether or not there are variant hotspots,” he said. Robinson is continuing to improve and work on the tool alongside students, hoping to provide epidemiologists and health care providers with quick resources to provide answers to critical questions. “Our goal is to take this very complicated data, talk with epidemiologists and find out what information they want to be able to have at the snap of a finger, and then create an app so that it can happen for them,” he said. “We’ll just continue figuring out what kinds of applications the Department of Health is interested in and how we can help them mobilize that data to help them make decisions and make their processes more efficient.” Robinson has received $700,000 from the Wyoming Department of Health that will go toward continuing work on the tool and giving more people like Zier an opportunity to get real-world experience. “It’s great to be able to have this partnership with the Department of Health because it’s terrific for students,” he said. “Working on this project, students have actually produced something. They haven’t just solved problems that were created in academia for them to check boxes off for their
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degree, but they’ve actually worked on something that’s useful to the public, and they have something to show for that.” Garrett Catlin, a statistics master’s student, is one of the new students recruited to continue working on the project alongside Robinson. “I’m really excited to be working on a project that has real-world applications that hopefully will be helpful to epidemiologists and even people in our community,” Catlin said. “It’s also been so helpful to have someone like Robinson who is looking out for students like me and the public health.” Outside of the invaluable experience students have and will receive, Robinson ultimately has a great passion for giving back. “I think that my love for teaching, my love for Wyoming and working with students are what make this project so special to me, because it just ties together all of those things while we’re serving the state,” he said. While some statistics classes might be filled with questions about the probability of a drawing a certain colored ball, Robinson and his team will continue to utilize statistics as a tool to educate students and prepare them for the future while providing digestible information to those who are keeping our communities safe and healthy.
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Innovations • 13
A lot of buzz UW researchers study Western bumblebee population to inform decisions about federal protection. If you step outside in Laramie, you’ll notice the abundance of native plants around town, in open areas and even the University of Wyoming campus. Bumblebees, with their plump, fuzzy bodies, are usually never too far away from these plants, doing their hard work to pollinate the plants. Unfortunately, bumblebee populations are on the decline, and it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly why; however, populations are declining so much that they could be considered a threatened or endangered species under the Endangered Species Act. According to Christy Bell, a Ph.D. student in the zoology and physiology department, only a third of the Western bumblebee population from 1910-2010 exists in Wyoming now. Bell has been tracking the Western bumblebee populations for over three years and has since continued her research including two more species of bumblebees—the American bumblebee and the Suckley’s cuckoo bumblebee. “My master’s work was mostly focused on the Western bumblebee, but just in the last year, more species were petitioned under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, so we are doubling down on those as well,” Bell said. Working with Bell is Lusha Tronstad, an adjunct assistant professor in the zoology and physiology department as well as an invertebrate zoologist at the Wyoming Natural Diversity Database (WYNDD). Bell has been helping Tronstad collect data on bumblebees through her master’s thesis and dissertation. “Thank goodness I have Christy to help me do research on bumblebees and bees in general, because we collect information on all bees in the state, with an emphasis in bumblebees because we really don’t know much about pollinators here,” Tronstad said. “Thanks to Christy, we’ve learned a ton. I call her the bee queen.” Tronstad and Bell both work at the WYNDD, a department
14 • Innovations
on campus dedicated to collecting information about species of management and conservation concern in Wyoming, Tronstad said. Typically, the species WYNDD is researching are being considered for protection under the Endangered Species Act or already protected under the act. “We work with agencies such as the Bureau Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and others because these are the people who manage the land and the wildlife,” Tronstad said. “At WYNDD, we’re collecting the data so that agencies can use it to make land and wildlife decisions.” The data Bell is collecting as a part of her research will ultimately inform the Fish and Wildlife Service whether these species of bees should be protected under the Endangered Species Act. Placing a species under the Endangered Species Act is more complicated than simply declaring it as threatened or endangered. In fact, it’s quite a strenuous and drawn-out process. “First off, a species is petitioned for listing under the Endangered Species Act, meaning an environmental group will write a report about that species including criteria that threatens the species, how abundant they were historically and how the population is doing now,” Tronstad said. After a report is written, it is submitted to the Fish and Wildlife Service, which determines whether an investigation is warranted to see if the species requires protection. “If they decide that this species may have merit, they then initiate a giant review where they will read everything they can get their hands on about the species, which could take years,” Tronstad said. Bell and Tronstad collect unbiased data that will be used by the agency in its decision on whether or not to protect the Western bumblebee under the Endangered Species Act. The other two bumblebee species Bell is examining have only just
been petitioned for listing, making the road ahead a long one. If the Fish and Wildlife Service decides to protect the Western bumblebee, the species will be placed under the Endangered Species Act, which will provide much-needed funding for its conservation. “One of the things I like most about the bee research is that nobody else has done it,” Bell said. “Animals like deer and wolves are very, very well studied but nobody has even looked at bees in Wyoming. It’s unknown territory we’re entering right now, and that’s exciting.” While much of Bell’s research focuses on providing data to the Fish and Wildlife Service, she also is researching which methods of capturing bumblebees are most effective. Bell works with two types of traps for bees when out doing fieldwork—vane traps and bee bowls. The vane trap is a brightly colored vessel that closely resembles a flower. Bees fly into the vane of the trap and are trapped inside by a funnel. Bee bowls, on the other hand, are brightly colored bowls filled with water and soap. The soap breaks the surface tension of the water, keeping the bees from flying or crawling out. Bell and Tronstad both want people to know that bumblebees play an important role in our lives, especially here in Laramie and Wyoming.
“Bees are the only insects or animals that actively collect pollen,” Tronstad said. “Whereas all the other types of pollinators like butterflies, flies, beetles and hummingbirds just accidentally get pollen on themselves while they feed on nectar.” Bees are to thank for a lot of what you see in the produce section of a grocery store. Without them, it would be difficult if not impossible to supply people with the fruits and vegetables they eat, Tronstad and Bell said. Bell and Tronstad are busy bees working to collect data on the Western, the American and the Suckley’s cuckoo bumblebee to inform the decision by the Fish and Wildlife Service. However, there are ways for non-bee experts to get involved too.
“Don’t use pesticides, plant native plants, provide nesting spaces in your yard by being lazy about your yard work, and most importantly, raise awareness,” Bell said.
“Be the weird bee friend!”
Christy Bell, a Ph.D. student in the zoology and physiology department (left), and Lusha Tronstad, an adjunct assistant professor in the zoology and physiology department as well as an invertebrate zoologist at the Wyoming Natural Diversity Database, work to collect bumblebee data. PHOTOS BY AIMAN ZEHRA
Innovations • 15
Sara Davis, university archivist, and Rachel Gattermeyer, digital archivist, collaborated on the COVID-19 Collection Project for the University of Wyoming’s American Heritage Center. PHOTOS BY AIMAN ZEHRA
AHC collects stories and artifacts of the COVID-19 pandemic for future generations to study.
PRESERVING
THE PAST
Everyone has a story to tell, especially when it comes to life during the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic will be a historical event that future scholars, students and people worldwide will learn about and reflect on—but how will the COVID-19 pandemic be remembered, and who is documenting it so it will be remembered. “I think as archivists, we’re kind of in charge of collecting history in an odd sort of way,” said Rachel Gattermeyer, the digital archivist for the University of Wyoming’s American Heritage Center. “When we get this gut feeling that something big is happening, we want to start collecting right away. It’s very easy for things to fall through the cracks and to get forgotten in history.” Odds are, if you’ve ever visited UW, you’ll recognize the American Heritage Center (AHC) as the uniquely shaped building that resembles the peak of a mountaintop. Chockfull of historical documents and archives, the goal of the AHC is to collect, preserve and teach history, whether it’s in the university’s backyard or overseas, thousands of miles away. The COVID-19 pandemic, being a massive event that affected billions of people’s lives, was something the AHC felt it needed to document. Gattermeyer and Sara Davis, the university archivist at the AHC, took on the role of documenting history in the making. “We knew the COVID-19 pandemic was big and it was going to be impactful. We didn’t understand the gravity of it back in March of last year, but we just had a gut feeling we needed to be doing something to capture this history,” 16 • Innovations
Gattermeyer said. History provides important lessons, and when history is acknowledged, past mistakes can be avoided in the future. Davis and Gattermeyer found themselves drawing parallels from the flu of 1918 to the COVID-19 pandemic. “We kept thinking about the flu of 1918, and here in Laramie, we don’t have as much information or news coverage documented from that time as maybe New York City does. So, we wanted to be proactive in order to capture as much information about what we were experiencing and doing during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Davis said. Gattermeyer and Davis channeled their “gut feelings” and got to work brainstorming ways they could document this historical period. “Sara and I, in the back of our heads, had the question of, ‘100 years from now, what will future researchers, future people, want to know about what happened in Laramie?’ ‘What do people want to see?,’” Gattermeyer said. “They want to see themselves, their grandparents, they want to know what life was like, they want to imagine what happened. A great way to do that and connect to the past is through photos, videos and artwork.” The two then started the COVID-19 Collection Project—an archive dedicated to documenting, preserving and sharing Wyoming’s experiences, thoughts, observations and stories throughout the pandemic. The project encouraged a wide variety of submissions that allowed for people to tell their stories.
Davis (left) and Gattermeyer examine part of an archive collection at the American Heritage Center.
“Not everybody communicates or thinks in the same way, so we were open to different formats that people could express themselves. We got some beautiful poems, some great photographs. There was even a theater group from Cody that did ‘The Covid Monologues,’” Davis said. Almost a year and a half after the project’s start date, the archivists plan on continuing the COVID-19 Collection Project. “We are always accepting materials on this project. While this project has been going on, people have gone through changes. Their perspective and how to deal with this pandemic have dramatically changed over time, and we want to document those changes, as well,” Davis said. While the project was successful and Gattermeyer and Davis enjoyed the process, it didn’t come without its challenges. Archivists are people too, living through the same history they are trying to record. “Living through COVID-19 was pretty stressful. It was a little bit of a struggle working with those narratives, too. COVID-19 already impacted my own life, and then part of what I’m working on is dealing with what’s stressful at the time for other people, too,” Gattermeyer said. Despite the emotional challenges, Gattermeyer and Davis found light within their work and through submissions and donations they received. “It was really lovely, though, to see the lighter moments that people would send in. One of my favorite submissions we received is a photograph of the T-Rex on campus—and it has a mask on. That was really great and brought some levity to the project,” Gattermeyer said.
There’s no doubt the COVID-19 Collection Project will serve as an educational reference for years to come and will provide future Wyomingites with an accurate, yet personal, account of the pandemic. However, one of the best parts of the project is that it greatly illuminates one of the most beautiful qualities of Laramie—the Cowboy community. “I think it’s great the way that we have come together as a community to support each other,” Davis said. “We’ve adapted in ways that allow us to come together across this big, vast state even when we have to be apart.” “I hope that students, faculty, staff and alumni come away from this project feeling part of the Cowboy community. I think it’s been a rough year, and people should be proud of what they’ve lived through and what they’ve experienced, whether that’s coming through the other side or still moving through it,” Gattermeyer said. Gattermeyer and Davis invite you to take part in recording Wyoming’s COVID-19 history, whether that’s sharing your photographs, written work, creative works or taking the survey on uwyo.edu/ahc/ covid-19-collecting.html. They invite individuals to get in touch at rgatterm@uwyo.edu or sarad@uwyo. edu with any questions about getting involved with The COVID-19 Collection Project.
“It’s important to tell our story,” Gattermeyer said. “And our story isn’t just one person’s story.”
Gattermeyer (left) and Davis worked to collect different types of items such as photographs and recordings for the COVID-19 Collection Project.
Innovations • 17
A WHOLE New WORLD UW professor’s research opens doors for potential medical advancements. Some scholars conduct research with technology and surveys, some use experiments with chemicals and some scholars conduct research on nematodes, better known as round worms. David Fay, a geneticist and molecular biologist in the molecular biology department, is one of these scholars. Through his research Fay proves sometimes, opening a can of worms is worth your while. When asked what he liked most about worms, Fay quoted Sydney Brenner, one of the scholars credited for starting research on worms, “They wriggle.” “What he said is kind of true. I’ve spent a lot of time with my microscope looking at them, and they’re just kind of beautiful. The way they move, the way the look. They’re beautiful little organisms and they inhabit a universe that you can’t see with the naked eye,” Fay said. Fay describes looking through his microscope to be like looking through a telescope at the planets and galaxies. Looking in the lens, you come to find a faraway place, invisible to the eye. “Through the microscope, I’m looking at this invisible world. I like entering that world,” he said. As mesmerizing as looking at worms is, Fay does a lot more than merely watch worms through his microscope. In fact, his research on nematodes could potentially 18 • Innovations
be opening doors for future treatments options for diseases such as cancer, birth defects and heart disease. At the Fay Laboratory on campus, Fay and members of his lab are researching mutant worms that are unable to molt. Molting is a natural and regularly occurring phenomenon for nematodes. The process of molting involves the organism shedding their outermost layer of skin which in turn allows for the organism to grow. Fay and his team went into the research not really knowing what to expect or what they would find. “There wasn’t a lot of work that had been done on mutant worms and molting, and I didn’t know where it was going to lead,” he said. “Geneticists don’t make hypotheses or go into research with any preconceived notions—we let the organisms tell us how things work.” Lo and behold, during his research, Fay happened upon a genetic mutation in the worms that prevented them from molting. “Stumbling across genes is kind of what I do for a living,” he said. Fay found the mutant worms were missing one of several NEKL proteins in their cells, which didn’t allow the worms to molt properly; the very same gene that was missing has been known to cause various types of genetic diseases in humans when absent from cells. Fay found that when the human version of the missing NEKL protein was placed in the mutant worms, the deficiency vanished, and they were able to molt. It’s safe to say tiny, one millimeter long, transparent worms are a lot different and less complex than humans, but oddly enough, comparisons and findings can sometimes be drawn between the two. “These worms go from an embryo to adult that’s laying eggs in just a matter of days, which makes them incredibly advantageous to work with but also, their cells as well as their genes are, in many cases, essentially identical to humans,” Fay said. “You try to relate as much as possible to what’s going on with the same genes or similar genes in worms and humans. In our case, this happens quite routinely where that thing you found in a worm, fruit fly or even a single celled yeast, which sure doesn’t look like a human, holds true,” he said. While it’s unclear whether these specific findings will translate to humans at this point in time, Fay hopes that two things come from this research— potential disease diagnostics or therapeutics and further insights into what these findings and research means for human disease. “If what we were doing had a clear impact on either a treatment or a diagnosis, it would be great,” he said. “But I am happy to also just be a contributor. Science is a big mosaic, and I’m fitting certain pieces together because I know those pieces will go into a bigger framework. The thing I can control, hopefully, is getting those pieces right and contributing so others
Professor David Fay, a geneticist and molecular biologist, works in the Fay Laboratory on the University of Wyoming campus, examining mutant worms that are unable to molt. His research is opening doorways to new treatments for diseases such as cancer, birth defects and heart disease. PHOTO BY AIMAN ZEHRA
can build off the science we’ve produced.” The Fay Laboratory continues to conduct research in hopes they stumble upon more genetic discoveries such as this, especially since the laboratory was just awarded a $2.7 million, five-year grant. This isn’t the first grant Fay’s lab has received, but he said this grant was secured by the skin of his teeth. When the lab receives a grant, he doesn’t take the funding they receive lightly. “Essentially what you try to do is not fall off the cliff because you have people depending on you. I want to keep doing science, but I’m not going to be able to pay my students or technicians or provide a good
environment for undergraduates if I’m not funded,” he said. “You live from one grant to the next, and the day you get one grant is the day you start worrying about the next one.” Despite his accomplishments and research, Fay remains extremely humble. He finds enjoyment in using his microscope for at least an hour every day and making contributions, but he says the greatest gratification comes from his pupils. “A lot of the gratification comes from the success of people that come through your lab. Most of them start out pretty new to this kind of lab work and to see them gain skills and confidence, publish papers and move on successfully with their career is really cool. It’s the thing that probably makes us professors the happiest,” he said. While nematodes are microscopic and seemingly insignificant, these wriggling organisms have much more to offer than meets the eye. Fay and his laboratory continue to “let the organism teach” while making potentially life altering discoveries along the way. Innovations • 19
WHAT’S THE Professor David Finnoff, economics graduate student Madison Ashworth, Professor and Econ Graduate Director Todd Cherry and Associate Professor Linda Thunstrom worked on a study to evaluate COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. PHOTO BY AIMAN ZEHRA
UW economists work to eliminate vaccine hesitancy with improved messaging. Vaccines are a medical revelation that have the ability to save lives and eradicate some of the deadliest diseases, such as measles, tetanus and even the yearly flu. So why is it that a medical advancement that can greatly reduce the severity of a given illness is subject to hesitancy and debate? Madison Ashworth, a Ph.D. student in the economics department, in collaboration with a team of economics professors, has conducted a series of research projects focused on vaccine hesitancy, including effective messaging that encourages vaccination. “Economics is all about policy analysis,” said Linda Thunstrom, one of the economics professors involved with Ashworth’s research. “We examine how different policies 20 • Innovations
might affect social welfare and what kind of policies would be the best in certain situations. So, vaccine hesitancy is relevant since it decreases social welfare such that policy interventions that boost people’s willingness to vaccinate might be justified.” Ashworth and her research team including Thunstrom, Jason Shogren, Todd Cherry, David Finnoff and Stephen Newbold were originally interested in vaccine hesitancy before the COVID-19 pandemic even came about. At the beginning, the research surrounded hesitancy with the MMR vaccine, better known as the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. “Recently we have seen the measles popping up again because not enough people were willing to take the MMR vaccine. Part of that was probably because people aren’t perceiving the risk to be particularly high because up until this point, the measles didn’t really exist anymore. The vaccine had been so effective that it had actually almost eradicated the disease itself in the United States,” Thunstrom said. However, during the MMR vaccine research process, COVID-19 hit. With a vaccine hesitancy research team already assembled, they took the tools created to measure message effectiveness surrounding MMR vaccines and shifted it to consider COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, far before the vaccine was ever conceptualized. “We knew with almost 100% certainty that there was going to be hesitancy toward the COVID-19 vaccine, and we thought that it would be helpful if we could, at a very early stage, identify what the vaccine hesitancy might look like so that policymakers and public authorities could prepare for a certain percent of the population not wanting to get vaccinated,” Thunstrom said. With Ashworth taking the lead on the research entailing effective vaccine messaging, she developed a study in which
UWPD Sgt. Chad Bade gets the COVID-19 vaccine from Ryan Kiser, Albany County public health nurse manager at the Mountain View Medical Park building in Laramie.
HESITATION? two groups, one with participants from across the nation and one with Wyoming residents, would be exposed to a message that highlighted a certain benefit of vaccination to test which type of messaging was most effective. “We looked at a variety of different messages to encourage vaccinations and what benefits should be emphasized, such as personal health benefits, social benefits for people like friends, family, the local community, or the economic benefits of getting vaccinated,” Ashworth said. This study concluded that of the different types of messaging on the national sample, those that emphasized the personal health benefits of vaccination, such as avoiding serious illness, were most effective in getting people to get vaccinated. However, to the research team’s surprise, none of the messages were effective in increasing likelihood of vaccination among Wyoming residents. “Vaccine rates in Wyoming are particularly sticky compared to national samples,” Ashworth said. “Wyoming is one of the most vaccine-hesitant states in the nation.” However, that was not the only study the research team had done on vaccine hesitancy. Before Ashworth’s study, they looked at how the levels of perceived risk and inconsistent messaging influence acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccine, with Thunstrom as the lead author. Similar to the other study, participants were exposed to a message regarding risks of COVID-19 from one source, such as the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and then another message from a different source, like the White House, often with opposing information. “We found that inconsistent risk messages caused a slight decrease in vaccination rates, so we found the need for consistent risk messaging to be important pretty early on,”
Ashworth said. “However, when science and our knowledge of viruses is evolving, it’s hard to be consistent. Sometimes we don’t know what the true risk is right away.” Throughout the studies, the research team has also been tracking vaccine intention, or the likelihood of someone getting vaccinated. Ashworth said at the start of the pandemic, they found that nationally, 80% of people were willing to take the COVID vaccine; however, as time went on and more misinformation spread, vaccine intention dropped to 50% by the end of 2020. Additionally, as of January 2022, Wyoming’s vaccination rates are lower, with a vaccine intention rate of 50% with only 41% of the population of the population having received two doses of the vaccine per the Wyoming Department of Health’s website. Wyoming’s lower intention and vaccination rates may be a result of multiple factors. Some people will not take the vaccine no matter what, others take a “wait and see approach” wanting to ensure that the vaccines are safe, while yet others haven’t had the opportunity to get vaccinated due to logistics or just haven’t seen the urgency to do so yet, Thunstrom said. With the spread of variants, increased availability, vaccine requirements, and reduced age limits for vaccination the research team is seeing more vaccine hesitant individuals being swayed to get vaccinated and responding to risk, which they see as a positive. “As economists, our hope is that in our society we implement reasonable policies—policies that actually improve society and welfare,” Thunstrom said. In this case, the research team believes receiving the COVID-19 vaccine is key to keeping our communities safe and healthy. They encourage everyone, especially Wyomingites, to seek out reliable information about the vaccine if they haven’t yet received it. “The vaccine is safe and effective,” Ashworth said. “The vaccine is much safer than it is to get COVID-19.” “Talk to your health provider and talk about what is the best thing for you to do,” Thunstrom said. MEET PH.D. STUDENT MADISON ASHWORTH AND LEARN MORE ABOUT HER RESEARCH EXPERIENCE AT BIT.LY/MADISON-ASHWORTH
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