The Jerry Manion Outstanding Student Award
2023 Recipient: Jamie Chen
Jamie Chen earned a B.S. ACS Certified Chemistry — Concentration in Biochemistry degree, a minor in mathematics, and Honors in Chemistry in May 2023. Jamie performed research with Dr. Gregory Naumiec for two years, and her multi
step organic synthesis and catalysis work is summarized in her thesis titled “Synthesis of a multimodal drug to combat both Chagas disease and human African trypanosomiasis.” Her research in the Summer of 2022 was funded by the Advancement of Undergraduate Research in the Sciences endowment. She received first place in the poster presentation in chemistry during the Arkansas INBRE Research Conference in Oct 2022. Jamie has been active with the student American Chemical Society (ACS) chapter since her freshman year at UCA, and she has served the chapter as the organizational secretary, vice president, and then president in her senior year. Jamie will start pharmacy school at the University of Minnesota in Fall 2023.
All of the past winners can be viewed here.
Dr. Manion enjoyed playing banjo and was in a group known as The Professors. The other members of the group were Denver Prince (bass), Neal Buffaloe (fiddle), Faril Simpson (mandolin), and Ralva Bass (guitar). For your listening pleasure, here are a few tracks from the UCA Dixieland Concert from September 26, 2012, with Jerry playing banjo.
Dr. Jerry Manion
In loving memory of Dr. Jerald M. Manion our dear colleague, professor, and friend.
(UCA service 1965-2014). A memorial service was held July 24, 2014 at the Brewer-Hegeman Conference Center at UCA. The UCA Jazz Ensembles performed a tribute to Dr. Manion and featured the Dixieland Band on his birthday September 24, 2014.