SOMERS, Wis. – The University of Wisconsin System today announced three recipients of the 2021 Regent Scholar Awards, including UW-Parkside Associate Professor and Department of Chemistry Co-Chair Dr. Francis “Frannie” Mann.
Dr. Mann joins her colleagues Dr. Haijian Sun from UW-Whitewater and Dr. Ava Udvadia from UW-Milwaukee as this year’s Regent Scholar recipients. They will be honored at the next Board of Regents meeting April 8 via videoconference.
The awards recognize UW System faculty for their extraordinary efforts in support of undergraduate research, innovation, and entrepreneurship. “This annual program provides prestigious, one-time grants to individual faculty and campus programs that undertake undergraduate research projects having the potential to foster innovation, entrepreneurship, and talent development,” said UW System President Tommy Thompson.
In accepting her 2021 UW System Regent Scholar Award, Dr. Mann talked about her motivations for her work. “My major focus is always first and foremost to provide students with real, meaningful research experiences in the lab. My students are actively involved in development of the research plan, performing the experiments, assembling, and interpreting the data, and presenting the outcomes.”
Dr. Mann’s current research focuses on harnessing the power of microbial secondary metabolism. More simply put, “My lab is interested in the potential for microbes – like bacteria and fungi – to synthesize industrially and medicinally important compounds,” said Dr. Mann. “We recently discovered that one specific bacteria synthesizes a compound that appears to kill other bacteria. This project aims to understand how this compound achieves this bactericidal activity and to evaluate it for future use as an antibiotic.”
You can view Dr. Mann and her students research via the UW-Systems Regent Scholar video, and view additional information about the 2021 Regent Scholar Awards on the UW System website.
“We are extremely proud of Dr. Frannie Mann for receiving the 2021 Regent Scholar Award and for the amazing work she’s doing at UW-Parkside,” said UW-Parkside Chancellor Debbie Ford. “Dr. Mann represents the very best of what Parkside has to offer – creative, talented, and hard-working faculty doing innovative research to help improve our quality of life and provide a better future for all. Congratulations Dr. Mann!”