With more than 45 years in Engineering’s student engagement, alumni and youth outreach programs, Carmela Vespi is a pillar of the Faculty. She launched MacEngineer magazine in 1985 and established what would become the Venture Academy STEM summer camps in 1991. Through 30 years, she helped build the camp from 120 attendees to over 2,000 and also guided the expansion of the program into the community, where it delivered more than 23,000 workshops in 2019. In 2020, Carm shepherded the transition of the summer camp into online delivery where it engaged more than 1,100 children.

Carm has built strong partnerships with the STEM outreach organization Actua, the Ontario Network of Women in Engineering (ONWiE), the YWCA’s Beyond the Bell program and Girl Guides Canada. In November 2019, she managed the team that coordinated the third ONWiE Network Summit after advocating for McMaster to host the ONWiE Chair from 2018 to 2023. Carm was also instrumental in the development and implementation of inspirational programs like Go ENG Girl, Go CODE Girl and the Girl Guides and Pathfinders Badge Day programming at McMaster.

Carm, who served on the Bay Area Science and Engineering Fair Planning Committee and McMaster’s 125th Anniversary Committee, has earned the Dean’s Excellence Award and three different Actua awards: the Experience Award for Indigenous Outreach, the Excellence Award and the Mentorship Award.

SAY CONGRATS TO CARMELA

Travis Casagrande has been working at the Canadian Centre for Electron Microscopy (CCEM) since 2013 as a research engineer who is responsible for focused ion beam (FIB) microscopy, among other techniques, and plays an essential role in training students, preparing high-end samples for the centre’s national user base and developing novel methods for using ion beam microscopes. Travis produces exceptionally high-quality cuts of items from pipeline steels to nuclear reactor components to solar cells. His samples are routinely much smaller than the diameter of a human hair. He has become a nationally recognized expert in FIB in particular and has contributed to numerous scientific publications by researchers throughout Canada. He also has a strong reputation for his ability to consult with customers in collaboratively designing novel strategies for achieving outstanding results. He developed a method for preparing samples from zirconium alloys using liquid nitrogen temperature cooling in the microscope. This has enabled CCEM to accurately investigate these kinds of materials, which play a vital role in the nuclear industry. As a result, CCEM has established itself as a leader in the characterization of nuclear-materials.

In December 2019, Travis came up with the idea of building the world’s smallest “gingerbread” house using the focused ion beam microscope. His effort created a microscopic work of art that sparked a news story which was quickly picked up by local, national and international media including CNN.

SAY CONGRATS TO TRAVIS

Since 2016, Sara Cormier has been an instructional assistant in the Department of Physics & Astronomy where her main responsibility is managing PHYS 1A03, the introductory physics course that involves 2,000 students and 20 teaching assistants annually. Sara’s strengths in pedagogy and technology have made her invaluable during the pandemic-triggered transition to online instruction as she has supported faculty, TAs and students in adapting to everything from Zoom to iClickers. Recently Sara led the team in developing home-lab kits for 1A03, an effort that attracted media coverage in Physics World and other outlets. Sara was also a core member of the team that redesigned 1A03 and provided enhanced training for TAs in areas including best-practice pedagogy, equity, diversity and inclusion. She made it a priority to mentor students in presenting their research projects at the Canadian Undergraduate Physics Conference, where McMaster has won more student presentation awards than any other university. Her support of students also includes taking Professor Hippo-on-Campus and Mental First Aid training.

Sara diligently promotes McMaster through the Ontario Association of Physics Teachers by frequently giving talks on pedagogy and EDI initiatives in physics education and by co-developing a database of physicists from underrepresented backgrounds to be used by teachers to enrich their curricula. She developed the Girls in Science program for high-school students and introduced an online physics contest for high school teams.

SAY CONGRATS TO SARA

Leanne Dyal has been part of the Population Health Research Institute team for more than 15 years, becoming a manager in 2014, a position that allowed her to establish greater procedural standardization for her team – an initiative that quickly expanded to become enterprise-wide systemic improvement. She played a key role in helping the unit through a sudden leadership transition in 2015, and in 2019 she was promoted to the role of statistical operations manager. During the pandemic, Leanne has ensured that staff have been able to complete remote work effectively and she has also been directly involved in the rapid initiation of two COVID-19-related randomized controlled trials.

Leanne introduced the first co-op student to the statistics team, developed a standard report library, introduced new data analysis tools and implemented continuous improvement of resourcing and study budgets, to list a few of her innovations. In a recent large and complex project, she invented a method for documenting critical information, tracking study questions and organizing datasets using new standardized nomenclatures – all of which allowed the team to complete the project a month ahead of schedule.

Beyond her core duties, Leanne serves as chef for the institute’s Pancake Breakfast days, contributes to the planning of social events and regularly volunteers to teach the principles of biostatistics, research study design and clinical research methodology within the Faculty of Health Sciences.

SAY CONGRATS TO LEANNE

Mihaela Georgescu joined the Department of Biology in 2003 as a research technician and is now the undergraduate coordinator. She has provided instructional support for BIO2C03/MOLBIO2C03 (Genetics), a course that traditionally employed only tutorials to reinforce lecture material. Mihaela, however, assessed the learning objectives of the course and spearheaded the development of a two-week lab research module: the personal genomic testing project. This initiative – which was well beyond the normal scope of Mihaela’s work – created a unique learning experience at McMaster, one that has generated exceptional student feedback.

Mihaela’s work has enabled the department’s transition to online teaching and learning during the pandemic as she swiftly focused on a handful of technology options to deliver both synchronous and asynchronous activities, hosted multiple training sessions and developed several how-to reference guides.

Mihaela is remarkably supportive of her students. She has completed a significant amount of student-wellness training and often maintains contact with her students long after they graduate. She also plays a strong role in the departmental culture as she participates in program and research information nights, is a member of the organizing committee for the Biology Undergraduate Research Symposium, and is co-lead of the local planning committee for the Ontario Biology Day conference hosted virtually at McMaster in March 2021.

SAY CONGRATS TO MIHAELA

Christine Hollins started as an administrative assistant for the Faculty of Social Sciences in 2004 before becoming the research administration analyst in 2017. In managing the complex research grant application process, Chris regularly delivers results in large volume and against tight and inflexible deadlines. Her innovations, such as coordinating the tracking and promotion of research activities centrally in the Faculty instead of leaving the task to individual researchers, have produced undeniable results. Chris began working more proactively with the MacExperts platform and became an expert herself in preparing compelling research CVs. The bottom line is that Chris’s work has helped drive the Faculty’s SSHRC application success rate from 46% in 2016-17 to 72% in 2019-20 – well above the national average.

Chris is currently part of the team creating a linked map that captures community research partnerships in order to facilitate insight into, and visualizations of McMaster’s numerous community-based projects. She also founded and chaired a social committee for Faculty staff and has volunteered to oversee the City Kidz Gift of Christmas toy drive and serve on the General Faculty of Social Sciences Committee. At the University level, she has been a member of the McMaster Healthy Workplace Committee and the recording secretary on the Joint Health and Safety Committee. She was also the Kenneth Taylor Hall champion for the challenge to achieve a 2% reduction in energy consumption.

SAY CONGRATS TO CHRISTINE

Vivian Leong joined the Department of Biochemistry & Biomedical Sciences in 2004 as a research lab technician, served as an instructional assistant beginning in 2016 and was promoted to undergraduate coordinator in 2020, just in time for her to play an irreplaceable role in the rapid transition of the curriculum to an online format. Vivian dedicated herself to direct training, creating instructional videos and providing guidance on using new technologies in support of both instructors and students. In fact, the department’s students are particularly supportive of Vivian’s work and of her nomination as they provided more than 90 messages of support.

That endorsement is particularly revealing because all BBS students begin their lab training with a foundation of skills acquired under Vivian’s guidance. She is also working with two professors to convert a laboratory manual to an open educational resource and she is facilitating workshops and connections that help enhance the department’s online teaching.

In translating the undergraduate laboratory experience into a virtual experience, Vivian mastered new software and interactive technologies while also creating dozens of original videos of lab techniques and developing an innovative virtual lab bench. She has single-handedly developed a module on CRISPR (gene editing) technologies for the third-year advanced biochemistry techniques course, giving undergraduates the exceptionally rare opportunity to gain hands-on experience in performing this technique.

SAY CONGRATS TO VIVIAN

Faith Ogunkoya joined the Science Career and Cooperative Education Office as a career development and relationship manager in 2017. A year later, she moved to the Student Success Centre to be the global experience coordinator and since 2019, has been the team lead for student services in the Office of the Registrar.

Faith has implemented several new business processes for the Student Services Team including PDF transcripts, webforms and the well-received Registrar’s Office Chatbot. As part of the Development and Engagement Committee of the Registrar’s Office, she created the #IamtheRO initiative to connect staff. Faith is also a champion for issues related to equity, diversity and inclusion. In one instance, Faith discovered that the International Fee Exemptions process inaccurately translated the source material and thus created a systemic barrier for international students, a barrier the Registrar’s Office was then able to remove.

In 2019, Faith helped guide the founding of the McMaster Black Students Association and she is currently the vice-chair of the President’s Advisory Committee on Building an Inclusive Community. As a member of the steering committee of the African Caribbean Faculty Association of McMaster, she contributed to the organization’s Black Excellence document. She also played a key role in the creation of the McMaster Employee Resource Group for Black, Indigenous and Racialized staff and served on the Black Athlete Student Review Committee.

SAY CONGRATS TO FAITH

In 2017, Sashaina Singh joined the Office of Community Engagement as a knowledge broker, a role that sees her manage partnerships with more than 200 Hamilton community organizations. One of those partnerships – with Empowerment Squared – involved founding a parallel MSU club, developing a Research Shop project focused on volunteer retention and linking McMaster’s Access Strategy to Empowerment Squared so local youth could more readily follow pathways to postsecondary education. Within the context of the pandemic and systemic racism, Sashaina also developed and managed a new program called The Connection, to identify challenges in the Hamilton community.

Sashaina represents McMaster as a DiverseCity Fellow through the CivicAction Leadership Foundation, is a member of the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction Steering Committee, secured funds from the Hamilton Community Foundation for the McMaster Community Poverty Initiative’s catalyst grants and brought 100in1Day Hamilton to McMaster.

Sashaina co-developed a course called INSPIRE 3EL3: Being in Relationship – An Introduction to Social Justice and Community Engagement. She has been part of a MacPherson Teaching and Learning Panel and been a member of McMaster’s Discovery Program Advisory Committee. She is also a volunteer and advocate for McMaster-based partnerships with the CareMongering Hamilton initiative, a pandemic response program that helps ensure vulnerable community members have access to healthcare and other necessities.

SAY CONGRATS TO SASHAINA

Darko Ljubic became the research lab manager in the Department of Chemistry & Chemical Biology after completing a postdoctoral fellowship in chemical engineering in 2018. In managing approximately 42,000 square feet of research space, he is responsible for the safety of more than 250 researchers, often coming into work on weekends and evenings to make sure the labs are operational. As essential staff, Darko continued to work on campus during the pandemic lockdown. He was in constant communication with all researchers and developed the necessary protocols to achieve biosafety certification under the unusual circumstances. He took on security access and key management duties for the department and revised the process of work request submission to Facility Services. Darko has also been instrumental in decreasing research costs to the department and reducing waste through achieving, for example, a 30% reduction in nitrogen consumption.

Darko went beyond his job description to lead a new Lab Stores operation, developing it into a sustainable profit centre. He also volunteered to prepare and deliver departmental Valentine’s Day treats during the pandemic. At the outset of the pandemic, he even had the foresight to order PPE immediately, to ensure the equipment would arrive by the time researchers returned to work. This also put the department in the position to make a large donation – which Darko organized – of PPE to local frontline hospital workers.

SAY CONGRATS TO DARKO

The McMaster Nuclear Reactor is one of the world’s most important providers of the life-saving medical isotopes used in cancer treatments. Over the past year, output reductions by other producers made McMaster-produced isotopes even more important. The Medical Isotope Supply Chain Team established McMaster as the world’s leading supplier of I-125 and Ho-166 isotopes. At the end of 2019, the team significantly and safely increased its production of Ho-166. Then, when the pandemic hit in March 2020, the team adapted over a weekend to maintaining production with minimal on-site staff.

Disruptions to international travel created obstacles to shipping the highly perishable isotopes. As a result, the team began strategizing shipping chains weeks in advance and timing production to match the remaining flights. The team’s efforts were reported by Reuters and the Toronto Star while Bruce Power identified McMaster as an innovation leader, initiating a broad-ranging MOU with the University.

Additionally, McMaster-made I-125 proved to be the purest in the world, thus minimizing both disposal charges and environmental footprint. At the same time, the team developed innovative ways to increase its production capacity for QuiremSpheres, tiny beads that encapsulate Ho-166. Finally, the team made it possible for McMaster to be the only academic institution to participate in a Strategic Innovation Fund application to Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada that will create a national Medical Isotope Ecosystem.

SAY CONGRATS TO THE TEAM

During the pandemic, McMaster has needed to issue an unprecedented number of refunds to students at a time when many established practices have been disrupted. The 17-member Student Email Refunds and Process Improvement Team addressed the need for quick remote transaction processing through the Email Student Refunds project and the team has ensured that aid and credits are refunded as soon as disbursements are updated on student accounts.

In parallel, this team addressed multiple pandemic-related tax reporting and University fee changes and managed ad hoc fee adjustment requests. Overall, the team enhanced service through automation that improved processing times, eliminated manual errors and streamlined business processes. Team members also served as trainers and mentors for Student Service Centre staff.

Partnering with a group from CIBC and innovatively leveraging PeopleSoft to deliver this work, McMaster was the first of ten pilot project participants to go live with email refunds utilizing new Interac functionality. As a result of this leadership and the quality of their work, the team presented McMaster’s solution at the International Higher Education User Group (HEUG) conference, as well as to CIBC and Interac so other institutions could learn from Mac’s example. In 2018, the team’s work was a key part of the Canadian Council for the Advancement of Education Prix d’ Excellence-winning submission, “Bringing students’ charitable tax receipts into the 21^st century.”

SAY CONGRATS TO THE TEAM

The Student and Community Support Team rapidly developed and deployed many of the complex tools and strategies McMaster used to meet the challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic by providing exceptional support to students, their families and the greater McMaster community. This 45-member team orchestrated the pivot from traditional student housing to offering services including international student quarantine accommodation, transitional housing for international students, postgraduate medical education learner accommodation and even housing for frontline healthcare workers. This complex transition involved everything from COVID testing to wellness checks to food delivery. The team’s reach also extended to pandemic-related initiatives off-campus including Clear Start Stays for off-campus students and the Student First Rental initiative for landlords and student tenants.

Probably the team’s highest-profile project was Archway which the team developed to provide 8,000 first-year students with personalized support through connections to dedicated coaches, mentors, resources and an online community of peers. Built from scratch and launched just six weeks after most staff began working from home, Archway involves 200 part-time student staff and 20 professional staff delivering a program that received media coverage from CBC Hamilton, the Hamilton Spectator and University Times while also inspiring more than a dozen other universities to seek McMaster’s advice on similar efforts. Archway’s planning team presented at OACUHO’s Fall Business Meeting and the Archway program is now the subject of a CIHR-funded study.

SAY CONGRATS TO THE TEAM

Lifetime Achievement Award

The purpose of this award is to provide an annual recognition for an individual employee who exemplifies outstanding performance and accomplishment and is considered a role model for others in addition to meeting the following criteria:

• the nominee demonstrates exceptional and inspirational leadership.
• the nominee has made remarkable achievements which have had a broader impact and contributed to McMaster’s reputation
• the nominee had demonstrated commitment to service within the local, national or international community.
• the nominee consistently demonstrates outstanding dedication in furthering McMaster’s reputation and advancing the mission of the University.
• the nominee has been active and collaborative member of the McMaster community.
• the nominee has championed at least one initiative which has made a significant and lasting impact on or within the University

A maximum of one (1) lifetime achievement award will be granted to a recipient in the amount of $2,500.  The recipient will also receive a trophy and 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

The awards are open to 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. The University President and Vice-Presidents are not eligible for consideration.

Individual Award

The purpose of this award is to provide an annual recognition for an individual employees who have made an outstanding contribution throughout the year beyond that normally expected for their position to the mission of the University through:

• the provision of exceptional service to staff, faculty, students, alumni, donors or visitors;
• the identification of measures which contribute to the efficiency and effectiveness of University operations; and
• direct or indirect contribution to the community or the University which impacts the reputation of McMaster.

A maximum of eight (8) individual awards in the amount of $1,500 each will be awarded to recipients of this award.  Recipients will also receive a trophy engraved with their name and will have their name added to the President’s Awards Roll of Honour.

The 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.

Team Award

The purpose of this award is to provide an annual recognition for a group of employees who have made an outstanding contribution throughout the year beyond that normally expected for their positions to the mission of the University through:

• the provision of exceptional service to staff, faculty, students, alumni, donors or visitors;
• the identification of measures which contribute to the efficiency and effectiveness of University operations; and
• a direct or indirect contribution to the community or the University which impacts the reputation of McMaster.

A maximum of two (2) team awards will be available each year. The monetary value of the award will be $2,500, to be shared equally among the group.  In addition, each team member will receive a trophy, engraved with the name of their group.  The team name will also be added to the President’s Awards Roll of Honour.

Although departments should be acknowledged and rewarded for their collaborative work toward meeting their goals, the intent of this program is to recognize the most contributing individual, group or team. We encourage leaders to find alternate avenues for recognizing and rewarding their department for good work.

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.

Early Achievement Award 

A maximum of one (1) Early Achievement (previously known as Rising Star) Award may be granted to an individual who was not selected as an Individual Award recipient. This award recognizes an employee with less than 5 years of employment at McMaster University and who has achieved excellent service beyond that expected for their experience in the position they hold. Recommendations for this special recognition are provided by the Advisory Committee and are awarded at the sole discretion of the President.  The award may or may not be granted in any given year.  There is no cash value attached to this award.  Recipients of this award will receive a plaque engraved with their name, and their name will be added to the President’s Awards Roll of Honour.

Special Achievement Award

The Special Achievement Award was created to recognize a maximum of one (1) individual or team who was not selected as an Award recipient, but whose exemplary contribution to McMaster merits recognition.

Recommendations for this special recognition are provided by the Advisory Committee and are awarded at the sole discretion of the President. The award may or may not be granted in any given year.  There is no cash value attached to this award.  Each individual or group member will receive a plaque engraved with their name or team, and their individual or team name will be added to the President’s Awards Roll of Honour.