BRIDGEPORT, Pa. — A physician, spine specialist, neurosurgeon, doctorate recipient, Gulf War veteran and United States Navy SEAL (Navy Sea, Air, and Land), former United States Naval Academy water polo player and swimmer Dr. Thomas Manning has gone far since graduating from the Academy in 1988.
An Oakland, Calif., native, Manning spent a great deal of his childhood in the pool as a competitive swimmer. After graduating high school, he was appointed to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., where he studied Engineering and was a varsity swimmer and water polo player. Following graduation in 1988, he entered US Navy SEAL Training in Coronado, Calif. and served with distinction within the SEAL Teams, deploying to the Persian Gulf in 1991, piloting wet mini-submersibles and serving as commander of the Navy’s Demonstration Parachute Team from 1988-to-1993.
During his time as a SEAL, he was the recipient of multiple honors: Bronze Star with Combat “V”, Navy Achievement Medal, Combat Action Ribbon, National Defense Service Medal, Southwest Asia Service Medal, Navy Recruiting Ribbon, Kuwait Liberation Medal, Navy Expert Rifle and Pistol Medals.
Following his service commitment, Manning pursued a dual medical and doctorate program through the University of Illinois-Champaign and the University of Chicago Prizker School of Medicine. He completed his PhD research in the lab of Professor David Kranz at the University of Illinois working on T cell immunology completing his thesis “Antigen Recognition by an Alloreactive T Lymphocyte Clone” to earn a Doctorate in Biochemistry in 1988. Two years later in 2000, he graduated from the Pritzker School of Medicine with a medical degree.
During his doctorate/medical degree pursuit, he earned several academic awards: McGraw-Hill award for excellence in basic medial sciences (1996); Craig Summer Research Fellowship at the University of Illinois (1996); American Society of Clinical Pathologists Award (1996); Saphir Memorial Scholarship for excellence in pathology at the University of Illinois (1997); Graduate College Travel Award Grant at the University of Illinois (1997); Biochemistry Trust of Urbana Award for outstanding Ph.D. thesis (1998); Van Prohaska Award for outstanding potential in teaching, research and clinical medicine at the University of Chicago (2000); Association of Academic Surgery Award for outstanding performance in surgical research at the University of Chicago (2000).
Dr. Manning completed a neurosurgical residency at the University of Washington in Seattle (2000-2007) and spent a year in the United Kingdom in 2004 as senior registrar in neurosurgery at Atkinson Morley Hospital in Wimbledon. During his neurosurgical residency he also completed a fellowship in spinal surgery in the Washington Department of Orthopedics (2005-2006).
A member of the American Board of Neurological Surgeons, the Congress of Neurological Surgeons and the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, Manning and his family relocated in 2007 to Boise, Idaho, to take up a neurosurgical practice with Neuroscience Associates.
