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Jeremy M. Jacobs Sr., chairman of Delaware North and chair emeritus of the UB Council, will be awarded the Chancellor Charles P. Norton Medal, UB’s highest honor, during the university’s 2025 commencement ceremonies being held May 2 through May 18.

UB faculty members Luis A. Colón and X. Christine Wang, and business leader William J. Maggio will receive the President’s Medal in recognition of extraordinary service to the university.

The Chancellor Charles P. Norton Medal is presented annually in public recognition of a person who has, in Norton’s words, “performed some great thing which is identified with Buffalo … a great civic or political act, a great book, a great work of art, a great scientific achievement or any other thing which, in itself, is truly great and ennobling, and which dignifies the performer and Buffalo in the eyes of the world.”

Jeremy M. Jacobs will receive the Norton Medal on May 2 at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences’ commencement ceremony.

Jacobs was appointed to the UB Council in 1997 and served as its chairman from 1998 to 2025. He was named chair emeritus in recognition of his distinguished leadership and significant contributions to the university.

Jacobs is chairman of Delaware North, a global hospitality company with customers in the United States, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. The company’s operations include food and retail at airports and sports venues, sports facility ownership and management, operations of parks and major tourist attractions, hotel ownership and management, gaming operations and fine dining.

Jacobs owns the Boston Bruins and serves as chairman of the National Hockey League’s Board of Governors. In 2018, he received the sport’s highest honor when he was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.

An alumnus of UB’s School of Management and Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program, Jacobs holds honorary doctorates in humane letters from UB, Canisius College, Niagara University and Johnson & Wales University. In 2015, his family donated $30 million to advance UB’s medical school, which was renamed the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

Jacobs has served Western New York for more than four decades with his business expertise and philanthropic leadership, and Delaware North has received multiple awards for social responsibility, community service and environmental stewardship.

A longtime friend and supporter of UB, Jacobs has served as chairman, trustee and director of the UB Foundation, chairman of the President’s Board of Visitors and adviser to the School of Management.

The UB President’s Medal, first presented in 1990, recognizes “outstanding scholarly or artistic achievements, humanitarian acts, contributions of time or treasure, exemplary leadership or any other major contribution to the development of the University at Buffalo and the quality of life in the UB community.”

SUNY Distinguished Professor Luis A. Colón will receive the President’s Medal at the College of Arts and Sciences’ graduate ceremony on May 16.

A. Conger Goodyear Professor in the Department of Chemistry, Colón is a groundbreaking scientist who has made significant contributions to ultra-high-pressure and selective chemical separations. His research has led to the creation of hybrid silica adsorptive materials used in chromatographic techniques for chemical and biochemical analyses.

Throughout his career, Colón has advocated for the inclusion of underrepresented groups in the chemical sciences. He has mentored more than 50 graduate students and established an undergraduate student research program that has been adopted by other institutions, inspiring generations of students to pursue doctoral degrees in chemistry.

In 2024, the American Chemical Society’s (ACS) Chemical and Engineering News magazine named Colón a trailblazer among chemists with Latin American roots. The same year, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) awarded him its Lifetime Mentor Award, and NBC News named him one of “The Latino 10” for his mentorship. His dedication to students has also been recognized with the ACS Award for Encouraging Disadvantaged Students into Careers in Chemical Sciences and the U.S. Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring.

Colón has received numerous additional accolades for his contributions to his discipline. These include the Eastern Analytical Symposium’s Award for Outstanding Achievements in Separation Science; the Research Corporation for Science Advancement’s Robert Holland Jr. Award for excellence in research, leadership and mentoring; the Dal Nogare Award in separation science; and the ACS Joseph J. Kirkland Award in Chromatography.

Colón is a fellow of the AAAS, the ACS and the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Originally from Cidra, Puerto Rico, he earned his BS in chemistry from the University of Puerto Rico Cayey and his PhD in analytical chemistry from the University of Massachusetts Lowell. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University before joining UB.

William J. Maggio, managing partner of the private equity firm Lorraine Capital, will receive the President’s Medal at the School of Management’s graduate ceremony on May 16.

A highly accomplished business leader, Maggio is dedicated to growing and building companies across the Northeast U.S. and particularly in Buffalo and Western New York.

As managing partner, director and co-founder of Lorraine Capital, Maggio has overseen the acquisition and operation of numerous companies, including enterprises focused on the life sciences. Among his numerous leadership roles, he is co-founder and executive chair of Egret Healthcare Ventures, a Buffalo-based venture capital company that invests in cutting-edge medical devices, and a partner with Poppy Ventures, which invests in early-stage companies innovating in medicine, health care and technology.

Maggio has left an indelible mark on Buffalo’s startup ecosystem through the 43North accelerator program. As its former chair and a founding board member, he has been integral to the creation of 43North’s entrepreneurial startup competition — the largest of its kind in the world. From its inception a decade ago, 43North today has a portfolio of 74 companies that have created more than 3,000 jobs while raising nearly $1 billion in capital. Its eforts have resulted in two “unicorns” — companies valued at over $1 billion — based in Western New York. Today, Maggio is chair of the 43North Foundation, which is building on regional assets to create opportunities for the next generation of entrepreneurs.

Furthering his dedication to Buffalo and Western New York, Maggio is the former CEO of the Jacobs Institute. He has served on the boards of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Burchfield Penny Art Center and the UB Foundation, and he is the former chair and vice chair of the Kaleida Health Board of Directors.

Maggio has held senior-level business development and operational positions throughout his career, including at Boehringer Manheim, Roche and Bureau Veritas.

The President’s Medal will be presented to X. Christine Wang at the Graduate School of Education’s ceremony on May 16.

Wang is professor of learning and instruction, senior associate dean for interdisciplinary research and director of the Fisher-Price Endowed Early Childhood Research Center in the Graduate School of Education. A world-renowned scholar in early education and learning sciences, her research focuses on technology and children’s learning and development, computational thinking and literacy, and early education in international contexts.

Wang’s research has been supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the Spencer Foundation, the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and the International Reading Association. Her current projects include several major federally funded initiatives: the IES-funded national Center for Early Literacy and Responsible AI, the NSF/IES-funded National AI Institute for Exceptional Education and NSF-funded research advancing an AI literacies framework for children. Together, these interdisciplinary projects, representing more than $30 million in federal investment, are transforming early literacy, special education and responsible AI practices at scale. She also leads UB’s PlayfulAI Learning and Design Lab and launched the “AI + Education Learning Community Series” to explore AI integration in K–12 education.

A recipient of AERA’s Jan Hawkins Award for contributions to humanistic research and scholarship in learning technologies, Wang has authored more than 100 publications in such journals as Early Childhood Research Quarterly (ECRQ), AERA Open, Early Education and Development, Journal of Research on Technology in Education and Reading Psychology. She has delivered more than 40 keynote and invited talks and over 100 conference presentations worldwide.

Wang actively contributes to AERA, the International Society of the Learning Sciences, the National Association for the Education of Young Children and the Association for Childhood Education International, and she has served as an associate editor of ECRQ (2016-23) and the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Research in Childhood Education (2017-19).