Known as Utah’s “First Lady of Theatre,” Babcock was also the first female faculty member of the University of Utah. Born in New York, she began her career at the U in 1892, teaching oratory and speech. She went on to found two departments—physical education and speech—chairing one of them (also a first for a female at the U). In 1895, Babcock produced and directed "Eleusthenia," the first theatrical performance by a university in the United States. Aside from dramatics, she also made her presence known in the theatre of athletics, coaching the University of Utah’s women’s basketball team until 1900. She remained active in local and regional theatre her entire life, served as president of both the National Association of Teachers of Speech and the Board of Trustees for the Utah State School for Deaf and Blind and retired from the U in 1938 at the age of 71.

A graduate of the University of Chicago and Harvard Law, Erika George began teaching at the S.J. Quinney College of Law in 2003, specializing in human rights and international law and policy. Her current research explores the evolving responsibilities of business enterprises to respect human rights, various efforts to hold corporations accountable for alleged rights violations, and efforts by corporations to fill voids in global governance. Today, she continues to teach Utah law students as the Samuel D. Thurman Professor of Law and serves as the director of the Tanner Humanities Center at the U.

As an infectious disease physician in Utah in the 1980s, Kristen Ries was at the forefront of treating patients at the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. It was a time when the disease was highly stigmatized and for many years Ries and her physician assistant Maggie Snyder were the only medical professionals in the state who would care for AIDS patients. In 1994, she joined the University of Utah’s Division of Infectious Diseases, where she set up an HIV clinic that continues to serve patients to this day. This year, the U awarded Ries an honorary doctoral degree, the highest honor given by the university.

It's fitting that University of Utah Fine Arts professor and alumna Kim Martinez would be featured on the 55-foot Salt Lake City mural. That's because Martinez is a renowned muralist in her own right, whose work can be seen across the Salt Lake Valley. For instance, in 2018, she and her students created nine murals for the Murray School District. “We met with fifth- and sixth-graders to develop drawings,” she told 15 Bytes Magazine. “We gave them painting prompts: ‘What’s your favorite thing in school?’ ‘Where do you go for safety?’ ‘What do you like to do?’” The result was a menagerie that incorporated the children's ideas and the history of the City of Murray.