JULY 22, 2025 |
Photo – University of Wyoming Gateway Center – Courtesy UW website
University of Wyoming President Ed Seidel informed the UW Board of Trustees that he will step away from his position when his contract expires at the end of June next year.
Seidel was appointed president in March of 2020 and began his role on July 1 of that year. He came to Laramie from the University of Illinois where he had served as Vice President for both research and economic development since 2016.
His decision to step down in Laramie comes as controversy over the demotion of a popular engineering professor, Cameron Wright, swept the campus last year. Wright, a former dean of UW’s College of Engineering and Physical Sciences, has filed a lawsuit against UW.
In the lawsuit, Wright claims that he was pressured into diverting $500,000 annually into a computing school run by Seidel’s partner, Gabrielle Allen, who is the Director of the UW School of Computing.
Across Wyoming, various officials have expressed their regrets about Seidel’s departure.
UW Board of Trustees Chairman, Kermit Brown, said in a written statement that Seidel had moved “UW forward in innumerable ways.”
Governor Mark Gordon also extended his gratitude, saying, “Seidel has led through significant challenges with a forward-looking vision and a steadfast commitment to the university’s future.”
In March of this year, Seidel was appointed chair of the Mountain West Conference Board of Directors, succeeding Keith Whitfield of the University of Nevada-Las Vegas
Seidel, the 28th president of the University of Wyoming, is a computer scientist and astrophysicist.
