WOMEN YOU SHOULD KNOW IN WYOMING: New Heart Mountain Executive Director Brings Japanese American Perspective

Aura Sunada Newlin’s heritage is half Japanese, half Irish and all Wyoming..

She grew up in Riverton surrounded by the Wind River Indian Reservation, dreamed up her own degree program at the University of Wyoming and returned to the state after graduate school to sink her roots deeper into her native soil. Sunada Newlin’s heritage is in her blood and on her skin: a shoulder-blade tattoo features an Indian paintbrush (Wyoming’s state flower) and Japanese characters that say “mountain soul.”