Platte County nutrition program educator receives honor for efforts

Housing development is expanding, pushing homes into wild landscapes at an unprecedented pace.
Yet, as residential development moves into previously undeveloped areas, those same species face more than the direct loss of land under a building’s footprint—they also can lose access to the habitat surrounding those homes, multiplying the effective impact of each new structure. Without clear guidance on how much open space must be maintained between homes to conserve habitat for wildlife, new housing developments risk shrinking available habitat and fragmenting the movement pathways animals depend on to move between seasonal ranges.

When it comes to University of Wyoming faculty recognition, it’s hard to beat the past two years for Department of Ecosystem Science and Management Professor Scott Shaw.
After receiving the 2025 John P. Ellbogen Lifetime Teaching Award that recognizes the long, distinguished, and exemplary career of one senior faculty member who has excelled as a teacher at UW, Shaw has been selected as the recipient of the 2026 George Duke Humphrey Distinguished Faculty Award, the university’s top faculty honor.