Dr. Merrill Freeman was born in Ohio in 1844 and served the University of Arizona as a regent and as a chancellor. His will provided for two medals to be awarded annually to students selected by the UA administration.
Qualifications include outstanding moral force of character. Additional factors which may be considered are: popularity, receipt of athletic awards, membership in organizations, service on committees and as officers. This is a medal award.

2024 Outstanding Senior Award Recipients:

Nguyen Dang

Image

Nguyen Dang is graduating with a Bachelor of Science in food safety with a minor in microbiology in the College of Agriculture, Life & Environmental Sciences. An international student from Vietnam, he has always taken pride in being the first and only person in the family to study abroad in the United States. Understanding the difficulties that other international students face, he decided to give back by joining the Global Ambassador program and co-facilitating different activities via the International Student Service to help students feel at home in Tucson.

He is forever grateful for being an active member of Omega Delta Phi Fraternity, where he could share his cultural identities with other people as well as be involved in many volunteering opportunities, such as Tucson Meet Yourself and Adopt-a-Street. From fall 2020 to spring 2023, he was involved in the Campus Pantry and Campus Closet, advocating for food and clothing security on campus. Also in spring 2023, he became the chair of the Equity Committee in Students for Sustainability, creating a safe space for its members when discussing environmental topics via roundtable events.  

At the same time, he served as an undergraduate lab assistant at Dr. Sadhana Ravishankar’s lab, where he assisted in a U.S. Department of Agriculture-funded project investigating the safety and quality of melons in 2021. He also presented his research at the 2023 University of Arizona Food Safety Conference and participated in the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture-sponsored internship at the International Fresh Produce Association in the summer of 2023, where he conducted a literature review on controlled environment agriculture.  

During his college years, he was a peer mentor, helping guide incoming freshmen and students with academic challenges. He was also a tutor and preceptor for two upper-division courses in his college. He was also awarded the Global Wildcat Award, the Stanley M. Alcorn Memorial Scholarship and the Harry W. and Elsie M. Porterfield Scholarship from CALES and was named to the Dean’s List multiple times.  

After graduation, Nguyen will continue his education at the University of Arizona, pursuing a master’s degree in applied biosciences, where he will be continuing his research in food science and food microbiology. 

Grace will be pursuing a Doctorate Degree in Neuroscience at the University of California- San Francisco starting August of 2023, with the ultimate goal of conducting neurological disease research that catalyzes life-saving therapeutic development.

Bao Nguyen

Image

Bao “Tintin” Nguyen is graduating Summa Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Science in physics (with honors), astronomy and mathematics. Growing up in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, a bustling and thriving city of 10 million people, Tintin did not fall in love with astronomy because of the starry night sky. What initially sparked his fascination for astronomy was the solar system toy model gift from his parents and the dazzling black hole visualizations from the sci-fi movie “Interstellar.” In 2019, gazing at the first direct black hole image, an international effort led by many researchers at the University of Arizona Steward Observatory, he realized his desire to pursue astrophysics: “Black holes are real! They might be far away, but I can still study them!”

At the University of Arizona, under the mentorship of Dr. Chi-Kwan Chan and Dr. Pierre Christian, he investigated how the strong gravitational pull of black holes distorts light rays or forms hot glowing disks with matter spiraling into these cosmic behemoths. His effort on the observational signatures of super-spinning black holes culminated in a lead-author publication in The Astrophysical Journal and two talks at the American Physical Society conferences. In addition, he spent the summer of 2023 as a research intern at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.  

When Tintin is not daydreaming about black holes and the universe, he is passionate about STEM education and outreach. He previously served as a teaching assistant in two calculus courses. He was a tutor in Mentorship and Education in Science for Tucson, an initiative to support Native American high school students in math courses. Currently, he serves as a leader in the Tucson Initiative for Minority Engagement in Science and Technology program and as a lead undergraduate research ambassador at the University of Arizona. Through these leadership positions, he has helped raise awareness of available resources on campus and guide peers in getting involved in research.  

Across his four years at the University of Arizona, he has been honored with the 2024 Excellence in Undergraduate Research Award by the astronomy department, the Galileo Circle Scholarship, the Weaver Award for Undergraduate Research in Physics, the David Lomen Excellence in Mathematics Award, the W.A. Franke Honors College’s Richard Kissling Spirit of Inquiry Scholarship, the Global Wildcat Award, and the Undergraduate First Prize of the Data Visualization Challenge.

Following graduation, Tintin will pursue a doctorate in astrophysics at Harvard University to continue his lifelong journey in understanding the fundamental nature of black holes and the universe. During his doctoral studies, he also strives to extend his teaching and outreach impact through mentoring undergraduates and volunteering in outreach initiatives, such as AstroBites and Astronomy on Tap. In the longer term, alongside his astrophysics passion, he aspires to follow in the teaching footsteps of his grandparents by becoming a professor, as well as improving access to astronomy education and research opportunities in his home country of Vietnam.