Henning Kuich is perhaps the best men's tennis player to ever compete for UVa-Wise, not only a standout on the courts but also an excellent scholar. The Hamburg, Germany, native played No. 1 singles for the College from 2004-08, earning All-AAC and AAC All-Academic honors three times. Finishing his collegiate career with a 36-14 overall singles record, Kuich went 20-11 against AAC opponents. He also tallied 20 doubles victories in that time, including 12 wins in conference matches. Most impressively, Kuich only lost two singles matches at the top spot his final two years, compiling a 20-2 record over his junior and senior seasons. Always displaying respectful sportsmanship, Kuich was named to the AAC All-Sportsmanship Team all four years of his career.
Succeeding on the tennis court all four years as a student-athlete at UVa-Wise, the highlight of Kuich's career came his junior season. In the first match of the 2007 spring season, the Cavs traveled down to Johnson City, Tennessee, to face NCAA Division I opponent East Tennessee State University, who was ranked 46th nationally at the time. Kuich played some of his best tennis and was victorious in a hard-fought, three-set singles match at the No. 1 position. Despite UVa-Wise not winning another match in the contest, the righty took down the Buccaneers' Ricardo Rojas, 6-3, 6-7, 6-3, to get the win over a Division I opponent.
Kuich almost did not further his tennis career after several injuries while playing competitive junior tennis in Germany forced him to retire from tournament play. After several years of absence from tennis and competitive sports, Kuich joined a student-exchange program at the age of 16 and moved to Gate City, Virginia, where he won state singles and doubles titles at Gate City High School. Only attending high school in America for one year, Kuich began his career at the College when he was just 17 years old after a chance meeting with UVa-Wise head tennis coach Danny Rowland and the help of both athletic and academic support.
A double major in biology and computer science at UVa-Wise, Kuich graduated from the College in 2008 with summa cum laude honors and a 3.95 grade point average. The former Cav earned independent research honors in biology his senior year, along with claiming the Joseph C. Smiddy Outstanding Scientist Award. Kuich was a member of the Sigma Zeta Honor Society for Math and Science and the Darden Honor Society, while earning the Joseph C. Smiddy Outstanding Freshman Biology Award and being a member of the Poor Farm Society his first year at the College.
Since graduating from UVa-Wise, Kuich has been very successful working in the field of healthcare research. Kuich continued his studies at the University of Virginia where he worked in cancer research from 2008-10. He graduated from UVA with summa cum laude honors in 2010, earning a Master of Science degree in biological and physical sciences. Kuich returned to Germany in 2010 and received his Ph.D. in Bioinformatics and Biochemistry from Max-Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in Berlin.
After years in academic research working on the origins of cancer, pain and temperature sensation, and the metabolic regulation of hypometabolic states like hibernation, Kuich joined Bayer, a German multinational pharmaceutical company, in September of 2015. There he leads teams of software and IT-infrastructure engineers in projects for the early research divisions at Bayer Pharma and Crop Science.
