Congratulations to everyone who was nominated for our Staff Awards 2015.

All shortlisted staff were invited to a gala dinner, sponsored by Warwick Conferences, on 16 January where the overall winners were announced.

There were a great number of submissions. A huge thank you to all those staff who took the time to make nominations to recognise and celebrate the outstanding contributions of their colleagues! For a full list of nominated staff members please download the Staff Nominations List. All nominations were very well deserved.

Winners

Find out who won and who was highly commended, and hear from the colleagues who nominated the winners about what made them stand out. It was a great night and congratulations to all involved.

Vice-Chancellor's Award for Outstanding Contribution

Winner: Suzanne England (Strategy and Change)

Suzanne plays a critical role, often behind the scenes, to ensure movement of people and traffic on campus is safeguarded whilst the University and City Council jointly undertake what is probably the largest programme of infrastructure works on and around campus to date. She has invested extraordinary amounts of time and energy in the Keep Campus Moving initiative; doing everything reasonable and beyond to keep students, staff, visitors and the local community as ‘happy’ as possible during a period of unprecedented change. Suzanne has quite literally kept campus moving."

Outstanding Contribution to Student Experience Award

Winner: Rebecca Freeman (School of Life Sciences)

Rebecca has made an outstanding contribution to student experience both in Life Sciences and across the University. She has had a significant role in creating a high-quality learning environment for Life Sciences students. Rebecca has led a number of initiatives within her own department to promote innovation and enhance the student experience. She has become a respected and trusted voice amongst the student experience staff."

Highly commended: Justin Greaves (Politics and International Studies); Eleanor Kempster (Economics)

Outstanding Contribution to Research Excellence Award

Winner: Martin Hairer (Mathematics)

Martin Hairer has been awarded a Fields Medal for his outstanding contributions to the theory of stochastic partial differential equations, and in particular for the creation of a theory of regularity structures for such equations. The Fields medal is considered as a mathematician’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize, and winning it brings such prestige to the whole University. His work is considered to be an outstanding contribution in all aspects of the University’s activities, to research and beyond."

Outstanding Contribution to Service Excellence Award

Winner: Heather Pilbin (Department of English)

Heather Pilbin is an extraordinary departmental secretary. Her resourcefulness and commitment to making the English Department an efficient, student-friendly organization is exemplary. Heather took over a secretarial team that reorganised key processes - assigning seminar times for modules that didn't clash, dealing with clashes that did arise, keeping numbers balanced between seminars, getting the lists ready and emailed out in week 0 and working evenings and weekends if necessary. She is simply outstanding."

Highly commended: Richard Amphlett (Warwick Accommodation); Emma Parker (Arts Centre); Conference Park and Events: Operations Team

Outstanding Community Contribution Award

Winner: Michael Scott (Classics and Ancient History)

Michael Scott has enhanced Warwick’s reputation on a local, regional and national scale through his high-profile involvement in public engagement and in media activities. His BBC4 TV series on drama in ancient Greece received over 500,000 viewers and his BBC2 documentary reached 2 million viewers per episode. His BBC2 catacombs documentary was shortlisted for the Association of British Science Writers Best Script Award 2014 and he pioneered ‘live tweeting’ to enhance reach and engagement with viewers. He has transformed his department’s effectiveness in engagement with local schools, most notably by organizing the annual Theatre day, and through participation in Warwick’s first Public Engagement Discussion Forum and in Warwick’s Distinguished Lecture series."

Highly commended: Ally Caldecote (Physics)

Outstanding Global Contribution Award

Winner: Danielle Miles (AV Services)

Danielle Miles has worked closely with IATL and many other departments around the University to develop the crucial systems through which we communicate with colleagues at universities around the world and, in particular, at Monash. Without her ability to provide innovative solutions to unique problems, her calm and reassuring attitude and her commitment that Warwick should be able to connect professionally with other institutions around the world, the work that we and so many others have developed with partners at Monash and beyond would simply not be possible."

Highly commended: Helen Knight (Economics)

Outstanding Team Award

Winner: Centre for Applied Linguistics, International Office and Warwick SU

Colleagues from the Students’ Union, Centre for Applied Linguistics and International Office have formed an innovative ‘collaborative triangle’ to address the issue of integration between domestic and international students. Dominic Scott OBE, Chief Executive, UKCISA said:

The key to their success has been the collaboration between their academics, their International Office and their Students’ Union as this has ensured the practitioners have taken a research-informed approach. This has been to the benefit of all UK universities and students’ unions as well as to the student experience at Warwick and established Warwick as one of if not the leading player in this area."

Highly commended: SITS team (Academic Office); Student Reception - Senate House

Inspirational Leadership Award

Winner: Andrea Pulford (Warwick Arts Centre)

Andrea takes a quiet, assured and collegiate approach to leadership, which has proved highly beneficial to the University. Andrea has taken the development of her leadership role seriously since she joined the University. She has successfully completed a Clore Fellowship dedicated to development of leaders in the cultural sector and has put herself forward for leadership development opportunities whenever they arise. The result is that she has become the ‘go to’ person, especially within the CCSG family when practical event solutions are sought. The University would be a less well serviced community without her skills and personal leadership."

Highly commended: Aileen Clarke (Health Sciences, Warwick Medical School); Paul Johnson (IMC, Warwick Manufacturing Group)

Unsung Hero Awards

Winners:
Michael Reggette (WMS / Estates)
Phil Jones (Conference Park and Events)
Sharon Udall (Department of Chemistry)

Michael Reggette (WMS / Estates)

Michael’s standard of cleaning is exceptional; his attention to detail is fantastic. When Michael is away, he is much missed! He always meets requests and goes above and beyond his duties; if you ask him to come and vacuum your office he will, even if it is not in his standard schedule. Michael is arguably the friendliest person in the department; he always says hello and asks how you are when he sees you. He is a real gentleman and incredibly good at his job."

Phil Jones (Conference Park and Events)

Phil has a 'can do' attitude and is constantly working to ensure clients have an exceptional level of service, offering support to other departments and going above and beyond the call of duty in the name of his work. Phil never acts like anything is a chore and if things need doing he simply gets on with it, creating innovative and original ideas to maintain standards of all tasks undertaken. He inspires all he works with to perform to their full potential and leads by excellent example."

Sharon Udall (Department of Chemistry)

Sharon is the rock of the Chemistry Department who consistently puts the interests of the University first. She has always been the colleague to whom we can turn for support and solutions to make our working life better. Sharon has always used and shared her knowledge and experience gained inside or outside of her role for the benefit of her colleagues and that of the University. Sharon is always there, always helpful, always polite and cheerful, extremely knowledgeable, always reliable, non-judgmental and has the patience of a saint."

Highly commended: Richard Perkins (Library); Charlotte Oldham (Strategic Planning & Analytics Office)

Get involved!

If you're interested in being involved in the 2016 Staff Awards, or have any feedback on the 2015 awards, please contact staff dot awards at warwick dot ac dot uk

A huge thank you to Warwick Conferences for generously sponsoring the University of Warwick Staff Awards gala dinner!