Heather Ann Wilson is the 11th President of the University of Texas at El Paso. She previously served as the 24th Secretary of the United States Air Force from 2017 through 2019. Wilson was the 12th president of the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City from 2013 to 2017, and she was the first female military veteran elected to a full term in Congress. She was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives for New Mexico's 1st congressional district from 1998 to 2009.

The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) is a public research university in El Paso, Texas. It is a member of the University of Texas System. UTEP is the second-largest university in the United States to have a majority Mexican American student population after the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity".