Honors student earns inaugural Bassman Honors Thesis Award

D. Landon Allen speaks at the inaugural Michael F. Bassman Honors Thesis Award ceremony Tuesday. Allen, an MBA student at ECU, was recognized for his winning thesis. ECU News photo by Cliff Hollis

GREENVILLE   —   An Honors Student and EC Scholar earned the first Michael F. Bassman Honors Thesis Award, presented during a ceremony Dec. 7 at J.Y. Joyner Library at East Carolina University.

D. Landon Allen, who is pursuing a Master of Business Administration degree at ECU, plans to enter the Brody School of Medicine in fall 2011.

His winning thesis project, “A Literature and Experiment Based Evaluation of Synthesis Techniques for Prothymosin-a Derived Peptides,” was completed under the direction of Dr. Colin Burns in the Department of Chemistry.

Allen graduated summa cum laude with University Honors in May. He completed dual degrees in biology and chemistry with a minor in business administration and a certificate in Hispanic studies.

During his undergraduate career, Allen won multiple awards: the Elite Pirate Leadership Award, the Keith D Holmes Scholastic Chemistry Achievement Award, the Robert H. Wright Alumni Leadership Award, the Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences Academic Award, and several ECU Research and Creative Achievement Week awards.

Established this year, the Michael F. Bassman Honors Thesis Award recognizes excellence in research and writing by students in ECU’s Honors College. The $500 award is sponsored by the Joyner Library and honors Bassman, associate professor of Foreign Languages & Literatures and former associate vice chancellor of the Honors Program and its first Distinguished Honors Professor.