Chemistry

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The Department of Chemistry at Western Michigan University is proud of our alumni.

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Recent achievements

Dr. Jack J. Manis (B.S. '70), Retired Pharmaceutical Research Scientist and Manager, Pfizer, Inc., was recognized as the Department of Chemistry Alumni Achievement Award recipient for 2018. He completed his doctoral degree in biological chemistry at the University of Michigan in 1975. After two years of post-doctoral research in microbiology at the Mayo Clinic, Manis joined the Upjohn Company as a scientist in fermentation research and development. Several publications and patents resulted from his research on improving antibiotic productivity in organisms of the genus Streptomyes by developing techniques and vectors to manipulate the genomes of commercial strains.
Randy Hice (B.S. '76), Manager of Global Strategy, Abbott Laboratories, was recognized as the Department of Chemistry Alumni Achievement Award recipient for 2016. Hice is considered one of the world's leading experts in complex laboratory automation. In 1989, while at Digital Equipment Corporation, he pioneered laboratory workflow analysis for the purpose of determining software implementation designs for Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS). In 1996, he served as CEO of Laboratory Expertise Center, Inc., a business consultancy specializing in multi-site software harmonization. In 2009, he joined Abbott Laboratories where he serves as Manager of Global Strategy for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors. Hice is the most published author in the world on the topic of laboratory automation, and has served as a monthly columnist for Scientific Computing magazine since 1996.