Krzysztof Adamczyk joined the Department of Family Medicine in 2004 and became the lead of the department’s Information Technology team in 2006, overseeing the group that does everything from providing IT assistance for 300 people, to managing a Tier 3 data centre, to building custom apps and tools. Kris regularly anticipates and prepares for emerging needs across the department, including in rapidly changing areas like cybersecurity. His diverse expertise allows him to provide services that would typically require outsourcing. This enables the department to undertake custom technology builds while also realizing significant savings.

McMaster’s Department of Family Medicine is the birthplace of OSCAR, one of the leading electronic medical records (EMR) systems in Canada. Kris made significant contributions to this achievement as his work was a key ingredient in attaining ISO 13485:2003 certification for OSCAR. Kris was also at the forefront of designing a new Faculty Relationship Management database which has formed the basis of a new and comprehensive database being implemented across the Faculty of Health Sciences. He was also a key contributor to pivoting the resident interview and selection process from an in-person approach to one that was fully virtual.

Kris has long been generous in the support he offers to other family medicine clinics, particularly in developing countries, related to the design, implementation, and maintenance of EMR software and IT systems.

Lindsay Bolan started her McMaster career in 2012 as a recruiting and promotion coordinator in the McMaster-Mohawk Bachelor of Technology program. After four years in three different roles, she moved to the Faculty of Engineering, eventually becoming the director of outreach and community engagement for the Faculty in 2021. In that role, she restructured the department, established a strategic vision, and built a high-performing team. She oversaw a website rebuild that is enhancing the Faculty’s brand and recruitment while also expanding the Engineering Co-op and Career Services unit.

With Lindsay’s guidance, the Engineering Alumni Relations team has experienced a renaissance. It developed a comprehensive awards nomination program and rejuvenated the Faculty’s annual Applause & Accolades event. It established a large-scale multi-year reunion, developed a new alumni mentorship program, and generally enhanced the connection between Engineering alumni and students. Lindsay’s team also launched several innovative programs for the Faculty including the Random Acts of Kindness Campaign, Mac Eng Reignites, the Applicant Challenge and the revival of the Dean’s Advisory Board. She supported the inauguration of the first-in-Canada Early Engineers program to promote STEM to pre-school aged children and Lindsay also developed an innovative Engineering leadership team trip to Silicon Valley that combined alumni visits, development calls, an alumni event, co-op site visits, corporate partner visits and teambuilding into one trip.

As facilities manager for the W. Booth School of Engineering Practice and Technology (SEPT) since 2014, Omar Danta leads the team that manages and maintains computer and IT facilities in computing labs in the Engineering Technology Building (ETB), McMaster Automotive Research Centre and the Learning Factory. Omar’s work in transforming several labs in ETB was exceptional as the project involved moving floor panels, rerouting power, and rearranging workstations. He did similarly strong work in setting up facilities for the new biomanufacturing graduate program. Omar also championed and personally implemented lab enhancements to accommodate students with hearing impairments.

Omar played a key role in SEPT’s response to the pandemic. He worked tirelessly to establish a production centre for online teaching materials, then facilitated curbside and remote pickup of equipment for online teaching. He even ordered and personally delivered office equipment when required. He provided the innovative solution that allowed instructors to remain on Microsoft Teams while moving through the lab where students were working remotely. Then, when it was time to return to campus, Omar led the committee that prepared the SOPs that guided a smooth re-opening. Omar recently received the Veronica Czerneda Award for outstanding contributions by a member of the staff in the Faculty of Engineering.

Mary Kiriakopoulos’s McMaster career began 35 years ago in the Department of Pathology. She later moved to the Office of the Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences, then became an executive assistant in the Faculty’s Human Resources Office. In 2019, Mary was hired as executive assistant in the Office of the Assistant Vice-President of Health Sciences. To that role, she recently added administrative responsibilities for the Juravinski Research Institute.

Mary’s unwavering professionalism has made her one of the most trusted staff in the Faculty and as such, senior leaders regularly ask her to support strategic projects and planning. Fittingly, she has developed a system for tracking the elements of these kinds of complex initiatives and, at multiple points in her career, she has installed these systems where there has previously been none.

A frequent mentor to new staff, Mary is well known for her ability to help colleagues acclimatize to new roles. That welcoming approach also serves McMaster well with visiting scholars and dignitaries. One recent example exemplifies Mary’s commitment to establishing these kinds of strong relationships. When asked simply to help a guest from Australia feel welcome, Mary took it upon herself to create a detailed full-day schedule for the visitor and ensure that he was able to get exactly where he needed to be when he needed to be there.

Lina Liu has been with the Department of Chemical Engineering since 2004, working in the C20/20 Innovation Hub as a research engineer in one of the world’s leading ophthalmic laboratories. While running her own projects, Lina also maintains the overall lab, works closely with students, and develops new research methods. For example, Lina created a novel synthesis process to overcome an issue the lab had with the scalability of a particular manufacturing method. She also played a key role in developing a device that simulates the ocular environment to test drug delivery.

Lina regularly takes on extra work, particularly if it helps students. That kind of commitment helped earned Lina a McMaster Graduate Students Association Award for Contributions by Non-Academic Staff in 2009.

At the start of the pandemic, Lina led the collection and donation of personal protective equipment while preparing the lab spaces for the possibility that they might be repurposed to support pandemic research efforts. Lina then worked onsite throughout the pandemic on research projects to support COVID-19 mitigation efforts. She also plays a big role in establishing the social and philanthropic culture of the lab. She rode in and raised money for Cycle for Sight and helped inspire donations for Fighting Blindness Canada, an organization that raises money for eye disease and vision research.

As a gardener with the Grounds Department of Facility Services, Christopher Neill maintains the gardens, trees, and outdoor grounds of the McMaster campus. His role also includes related tasks including planting trees and shrubs, servicing garden machinery, pruning and monitoring the health and growth of the horticultural areas of campus. During the winter, Chris is part of the essential service team for all winter-related operations needed around the University.

Chris regularly distinguishes himself through his hard work, particularly in his willingness to support his colleagues. He contributes to the other Grounds Department sub-teams whenever possible – including helping with mow crew maintenance – and provides exceptional leadership to summer students who are always excited to work with Chris. He also attends horticulture certificate courses to help enrich his work and improve the impact of his efforts around campus. As he acquires new knowledge related to his areas of expertise, he shares it with anyone who can benefit from what he has learned. For example, Chris brought a new approach to trimming large grass areas to McMaster. After training the appropriate crews in the technique, Chris’ innovation allowed the Grounds Department to trim significantly more surface area while saving on materials and time. Chris is also always ready to rise to the demands of special events such as McMaster Community Days.

Tracy Rerecich, who has been part of the McMaster staff team for nearly three decades, has been a laboratory technician in the Department of Biology since 2017. She is responsible for the laboratory component of the 1,500-student BIO1A03 course, a cornerstone of the largest entry-level program in the Faculty of Science. Tracy prepares the lab daily, but also designs and tests experiments, anticipates student issues and seeks feedback from students, faculty, staff, and teaching assistants. Tracy has a lead role in hiring and training TAs as well as in designing and launching the extracurricular Level 1 science workshops. To accommodate students facing illness or life circumstances, Tracy opens the lab an extra day a week to help students re-do laboratory exercises. She also co-chairs the Joint Health and Safety Committee for the Faculty and is a frequent volunteer for high-school recruitment events and outreach efforts including the STEM Engagement Project.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Tracy worked with the BIO1A03 instructional team to develop innovative at-home lab kits. She personally assembled and shipped the kits to thousands of students in a process that involved securing supplies, making, and labelling thousands of tubes/solutions and then packing and addressing the kits. To complement the kits, Tracy developed videos that guided students through the experiments, allowing them to build their technical skills at home.

For 40 years, Steven Spencer has been a valued member of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He has been a research engineer, laboratory engineer and now, an instructional facilities engineer. In that role, he supervises 14 undergraduate labs that accommodate more than 1,000 students annually, a number that has grown four-fold over the last several years. Steve’s work has been vital to advancing laboratory capacity to match that enrollment. In particular, his ability to implement new computer systems, train the staff and students using those systems and then debug challenges as they arise has been key to this process. In summer 2022, when there was a complication in the usual process for preparing labs for the fall term, Steve did exceptional work to ensure that the labs were ready for the students in September.

Steve has also made his mark as an irreplaceable programmer. Earlier in his McMaster career, he created an interactive graphical geometry editor and graphical representation of results from numerical analysis codes, as well as documentation and user manuals for each. He also wrote a vital post-processor for the commercial finite element package used in one of the industrially funded projects. When Steve was a laboratory engineer, he even wrote a program to manage the swipe card system for several thousand students in the Faculty of Engineering.

After working on short-term contracts that she helped fund through grant applications, Abbie Little began her permanent role with the Academic Sustainability Programs Office in 2021. As community engagement coordinator, Abbie manages the Interdisciplinary Minor in Sustainability Student Committee that she founded in 2018 as well as the Sustainability Ambassadors Program, a co-curricular initiative now involving more than 200 students and 14 student organizations. Both of these student-focused programs are the product of Abbie taking the initiative to develop better ways to serve identified student needs.

Abbie’s commitment to the environment and to McMaster students has been exceptional. She supported the student founder of the Native Bee Project, expanding it to the point where it has installed 50 bee homes around campus. In 2020, Abbie began working with McMaster’s Centre for Climate Change, Nature at McMaster and Trees for Hamilton to develop McMaster’s Carbon Sink Forest. This past November, the team led its largest planting yet with 300 trees and 100 volunteers. In 2021, Abbie helped launch a student proposal for a community fridge on campus. It is now the largest university-based community fridge in Ontario. As a result, Abbie frequently consults with other universities across Canada on their own similar projects and she was a key leader in the development of the resource Implementing a Community Fridge: A Guidebook for Campuses.

With the mission to promote water bottle refilling on campus, the Bring Your Own Bottle (BYOB) Working Group began operating in January 2022, reporting to the McMaster Okanagan Committee (MOC) and McMaster Sustainability Advisory Committee. The BYOB team has since successfully engaged key champions at the University’s highest levels, secured funding through the McMaster Okanagan Special Projects Fund, hired a sustainability student to help lead the initiative, created an interactive map displaying more than 200 refill stations, created the BYOB webpage, created and installed new signage, developed communication programs to market the initiative and even developed procedures for water quality sampling and water filter replacement. Then, throughout the entire process, the working group has been dedicated to seeking, receiving and responding to user feedback in order to improve the quality and impact of the system.

The working group also engaged with a variety of student initiatives to strengthen the BYOB project and create experiential learning opportunities. One undergraduate student conducted a research project on strategies for reducing single-use water bottles while another investigated data collection and analysis. A different student group focused its attention on implementing engagement strategies. With these successes and impacts, the BYOB initiative established McMaster as a leader among Canadian universities in this area and earned the program a feature in the University’s 2021-22 Sustainability Report.

Team members:

• Leah Allan
• Lynn Armstrong
• Megan Bieksa
• Adrianna Diab
• Shelir Ebrahimi
• John Hemmer
• Monica Palkowski
• Alicia Westfall
• Kate Whalen

In 1951, Alumni Memorial Hall (AMH) opened with a dining venue called The Buttery. The Faculty Club – later the University Club – took over operations of the AMH dining facility in the 1960s. In 2022, the University tasked Hospitality Services with creating a new and broader dining experience for the venue. Senior manager Catherine Young and executive chef Paul Hoag led the project with chefs David Fisher and Chris Beltrano. The team conceived of and delivered a fine-dining experience with a strong connection to McMaster tradition through its reclaimed name: The Buttery.

The team remade the dining room visually, began using local products, emphasized culinary excellence and elevated service levels. Sustainability was a key mission, supported by tactics including upcycled furniture, beverages provided exclusively by local companies and the cultivation of a kitchen garden. The restaurant has applied for and should receive the LEAF designation afforded restaurants with the highest standards of environmental responsibility.

These approaches also contribute to the exceptional dining experience at The Buttery. Early positive reviews have helped drive strong event bookings which have more than doubled operating revenues. At the same time, the fine dining venue provides Hospitality Services staff with culinary experiences like bread making, chocolatier work, pastry work and butchery to diversify their skills beyond those provided by the typical on-campus dining experience.

Team members:

• Chris Beltrano
• David Fisher
• Paul Hoag
• Catherine Young

The Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes individuals who have demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to McMaster that is above and beyond what is expected of their position.  Recipients of this award have made a positive impact on the broader community and furthered McMaster’s mission with a significant and sustained contribution of their work.

The awards are open to all full-time or part-time staff from operations, research and ancillary departments or units of McMaster University who have demonstrated a minimum commitment of 15 years of service to the University.

A maximum of one (1) lifetime achievement award in the amount of $5,000, and a trophy naming the recipient and the contribution for which they are receiving the award. In addition, the recipient will have their name added to a permanent Roll of Honour maintained by the University.  The award may or may not be awarded in any given year.

Individual awards are open to all full-time or part-time staff from operations, research and ancillary departments or units of McMaster University who are employed on a continuing basis or for a term or contract of one or more year’s duration. Employees at TMG Band O or higher are not eligible for the awards.

A maximum of eight (8) individuals awards in the amount of $3,000, and a trophy naming the recipient and the contribution for which they are receiving the award.  In addition, each year, the recipients will have their names added to a permanent Roll of Honour maintained by the University.

All members of nominated teams will be celebrated as a group for their contribution to a project on behalf of McMaster University.  It is anticipated that at least seventy-five percent of team members will meet the Individual Awards criteria.  Confirmation of team members is the responsibility of the nominator and must be completed at the time of the nomination submission.

Although individuals or units within a department should be acknowledged and rewarded for their collaborative work toward meeting their goals, the intent of this Awards Program is to recognize those individuals or groups within a team who have made the most significant contributions to a particular project, or project teams spanning multiple departments or sub-departments, where the members have all made outstanding contributions beyond what is normally expected of their positions. We encourage leaders to find alternate avenues for recognizing and rewarding their department for good work on a more regular and ongoing basis.

A maximum of two (2) team awards will be made to a group of employees, and for such group awards, the size of the award will be $1,000 per team member.  In addition, each group member will receive a trophy, naming their group, and their group name will be added to the permanent Roll of Honour maintained by the University.

The Early Achievement Award was created to recognize an employee with less than 5 years of employment at McMaster University who has achieved excellent service beyond that expected for their level of experience in the position they hold.  The award praises their tenacity and motivation to grow, develop, and lead in their role.

Recommendations for this special recognition are provided by the advisory Committee and awarded at the sole discretion of the President.

A maximum of one (1) Early Achievement Award may be granted to an individual who was not selected as an Individual Award recipient.  A monetary amount of $1,000 and a trophy naming the recipient and the contributions for which they are receiving the award will be given.  In addition, the recipient will have their name added to a permanent roll of Honour maintained by the University. The award may or may not be granted in any given year.

The Special Achievement Award may be granted to an individual or team who was not selected as an Award recipient but whose exemplary contribution to McMaster deserves to be recognized.

Recommendations for this special recognition are provided by the Advisory Committee and are awarded at the sole discretion of the President.

A maximum of two (2) Special Achievement Awards may be granted; a maximum of one (1) individual and one (1) team. Individual monetary awards will be $1,000.  Team monetary awards will be $500 per team member.  A trophy naming the recipient and their contributions for which they are receiving the award will be given. In addition, the recipients will have their names added to a permanent Roll of Honour maintained by the University. The award may or may not be granted in any given year.