UW Rises to the Occasion to Face Grand Challenges

Recipients of a Grand Challenges grant, Assistant Professor Jacob Hochard and undergraduate research assistant Gary Gassaway use spotting scopes, digital technology and social media-driven crowd-sourced conservation fundraising to provide live-streamed access to Wyoming’s remote wildlife.

In last year’s edition of Elevations, we featured the launch of the Grand Challenges Committee in spring 2019. The Grand Challenges initiative is a program that seeks to put the University of Wyoming at the forefront of solving, or at least helping aid, some of the major problems that face Wyoming from a high-level view. These problems included addressing five specific themes: biodiversity and Earth system change; energy transition and economic diversification; rural health issues; public trust in research and information; and quality of democracy and equality.

The Grand Challenges Committee looks to aid these problems uniquely, promoting transdisciplinary collaborations spanning the entire university, bringing together departments and colleges that generally don’t work together to help find solutions to the themes set out by the committee that affect the entire state. This collaboration not only brings new perspectives together, but also builds camaraderie at a time when many in the university feel disconnected from one another due to the pandemic.

This transdisciplinary approach has been invaluable, according to Danny Dale, former associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences as well as a co-chair of the Grand Challenges Committee.

“It’s been a way to connect us in a time that has been very trying and kept everyone apart, both physically and emotionally. This has been a way to reconnect us and even connect anew. We’ve seen a lot of excitement and new connections being formed around campus to take on this research,” Dale says. “It’s fun to see faculty and students from across campus come together in this way. We have great minds coming together, who may never have worked together, to form new solutions.”

Mike Borowczak, the Loy and Edith Harris Assistant Professor of Computer Science, and his team earned a grant for their project, titled: Next-Generation Secure Digital Ecosystems at the Nexus of Climate and Energy.

Grand Challenges Committee Funds First Round of Grants

In summer 2021, this vision came together when the Grand Challenges Committee announced the first round of projects to be funded via planning grants, with one project representing each of the five themed challenges the program intends to provide solutions for.

The Democracy Lab is building a pipeline for rising leaders. a structure that channels the innovation and energy of students; deploys the wisdom of senior researchers and public servants; and builds from the talents, skills and needs of community members to improve the quality of democracy and equality throughout Wyoming and the world.

The Democracy Lab

Adapting Pandemic-Driven Technological Advancement to Expand Ecosystem Service Reach and Virtual Access to

Wyoming national Parks

This project aims to integrate digital technology with social media-driven and crowd-sourced conservation fundraising to build global and virtual access to Wyoming’s world-class but remote wildlife viewing experiences. Innovative Methods Impact

to develop Adaptive Capacity through Transdisciplinarity

This project aims to transform UW’s approach to research and enhance public trust in research and information through a cross-cutting, institutionally empowered, transdisciplinary approach in which science, technology, engineering, mathematics, arts, humanities and social sciences are equal partners.

The UCHAT Project

Unlocking Community Health Access Together

This project seeks to build community support for health improvement strategies through an inclusive, deliberative process, with the ultimate goal of increasing health access and outcomes in rural communities.

Next-Generation Secure Digital Ecosystems at

the Nexus of Climate and energy

This project aims to develop next-generation, secure digital platforms and promote sustainable energy production, transport and consumption via secure, decentralized monitoring and control systems.

These charter projects fulfill the Grand Challenges goal of taking on the “tough problems” facing our world today collaboratively and innovatively. According to former Vice President for Research and Economic Development Ed Synakowski, the official funding of projects is a step towards taking the Grand Challenges Committee out of the idea stage, and into making a real impact.

“We can take this exciting step with the Grand Challenges because of the fantastic campus wide response in identifying great problems most appropriate for this university to tackle, and through which we can organize and exert statewide and national leadership. Given the high quality of the proposals and their rigorous review, we are now at the stage of getting down to the hard, creative work of making Grand Challenges work impactful realities,” says former Vice President Synakowski. “The success of the Grand Challenges enterprise is central to President Seidel’s vision for a university that generates impact by embracing the toughest problems of the day. The quality and range of these proposals show that the passion and intellectual resources on this campus are up to this great task.”

Looking to the Future

While the projects funded in the first round of the Grand Challenges initiative have already proven to be a success, Dale says there’s room to be positive for further developments.

“The Grand Challenges grant has been a great jumping-off point for many of the projects chosen,” Dale says. “These grants have been used to spur activity to lead to further grant proposals outside of UW, whether it be state or federal. Some of our projects have written grants and have also already been funded to continue the work on their Grand Challenges projects.”

Beyond the current projects, Dale, along with committee co-chairs John Kaszuba, Isadora Helfgott and Scott Henkel, remains optimistic that there will be further rounds of the grant given to continue this project that has already been so successful.

“We’re proud of the approach we took in making this a bottom-up, grassroots effort. This is a great model for approaching big issues in academics and society,” Dale says. “The buy-in from campus, faculty and the different departments has been a crucial part in making this successful.”