The UNC Core Facilities Staff Recognition Award program recognized three recipients for the 2023 spring award cycle. Each award recipient will receive $1,000 and a feature on the Office of Research Technologies website. The program review committee congratulates all winners and thanks those who nominated core employees for these awards during this award cycle.
Category winners will be announced online in August at: https://www.med.unc.edu/corefacilities.
The next Core Facility Staff Recognition Award will be open for nominations in November.
Lauren Ralph, employed by the Pathology Services Core, is recognized as the winner of the Performance Excellence award. She received 11 nominations from her supervisors, co-workers, and customers. Specifically, her nominators praised her technical contributions to developing new protocols and assays, superb management and coordination of clinical trial samples and workflows, and the leadership skills and role she has taken with her colleagues in the core. It was clear that Lauren goes “above and beyond” to improve the Pathology Service Core and we are grateful to have her as part of our UNC Chapel Hill core community.
Joshua Adolph, from the High-Throughput Sequencing Facility, is recognized as the winner of the Technical Achievement award. Joshua was nominated by his supervisor who spoke very highly of Joshua’s efforts to troubleshoot instrument problems, improve quality control, and contribute to research rigor and reproducibility while also resulting in cost savings to the core. Joshua’s efforts to improve these protocols were self-initiated and of high value to the core and its customers.
Finally, Brendan Sheridan from the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center Bioinformatics Core is recognized as the winner of the Customer Service award. Brendan received three nominations from both customers and coworkers. In Brendan’s role as a Systems Administrator, he continuously goes above and beyond to ensure his customers have what they need, that any interruptions to services minimize customer impact, and he is a patient and kind problem-solver– all critical behind-the-scenes skills to ensure the Bioinformatics core operates smoothly and can provide the highest quality research support.
There were many exceptional nominations to this fall’s award cycle, and we also want to acknowledge the other nominees who are all doing outstanding work in their respective core facilities:
- Hao Zhou (Lineberger Cancer Center Bioinformatics Core)
- Rachel Coble (NORC Metabolomics and Exposome Lab)
- George Altshuller (Animal Models Core)
- Hemamalini Bommiassamy (High-Throughput Sequencing Facility)
- Evan McGilvary (Preclinical Research Unit)