• From blockchain to tardigrades, a new crop of students have many opportunities.

Chad Baldwin, Director of Marketing for the University of Wyoming recently spoke with SVI Radio as part of the Weekday Wakeup and detailed a few topics that are developing on campus.

One positive is the applications for new students is well over 6,000 for the upcoming enrollment period.

“That’s the best we’ve had in five years,” Baldwin stated. “We’re exited about that. The two big states that students are coming from are Wyoming and Colorado and then California, Texas Illinois and Minnesota. But we’ve done some enhanced marketing on that.”

Due to financial aid delays at the federal level, UW has made the decision to extend their deadline.

“We’ve extended our student confirmation from May 1 to June 1 so students can further examine their finances,” Baldwin added. “We have had an enrollment decline since COVID-19 but this year is a good start to reverse this trend.”

Another topic is that of blockchain, which is a system in which a record of transactions, especially those made in a cryptocurrency, is maintained across computers that are linked in a peer-to-peer network.

“We have a program with blockchain and it’s been ranked as the #2 blockchain program in the country,” Baldwin said. “Students can get a minor in blockchain and get to have real hands-on experience in this sphere.”

Other examination of headlines at the university was that of the UW-led research team which has determined that the ice cover on Yellowstone Lake has remained unchanged while other lakes in North America have experienced less ice cover.

“Researchers from all over the world descend on northwest Wyoming because of the environment that exists there,” Baldwin continued. “The university is right here because it’s our state. One thing that has been a phenomenon is our climate has warmed and there are less cover on North American lakes, but Yellowstone is an outlier. Our researchers have observed that it’s not like the other lakes in North America. The reasons has been that there has been more snowfall which serves as a buffer. Our focus is on Wyoming and our researchers are doing great work.”

One world-leading expert calls UW home, Thomas Boothby is a world-renowned molecular biologist who is working with tiny creatures called tardigrades. Boothby and his staff have determined that these “water bears” can be used to impact human cells.

“If the water goes away or the temperature goes to an extreme [tardigrades] just go into a state of suspended animation,” Baldwin added. “They thought there might be a human health application so they pulled some proteins from these things and you can put it in human cells and it can help preserve pharmaceuticals and things like blood if there is no refrigeration. There has been interest from NASA for space travel applications. It’s a real hot topic and he’s getting grant funding from all over the world.”

Baldwin added that students attending UW may get chances that they might not get until farther down the line in other situations.

“We pride ourselves on the fact that as an undergraduate you may have a chance to work in the field and get opportunities that you may not get unless you are a graduate student in some other larger universities,” he said.