2023 Support Staff Awards of Excellence Winners
Congratulations to the winners!
Award for Impact in Research
Charlene Clow – Director, Research Office
Charlene’s dedication and commitment to supporting the Faculty’s researchers and overall research success is truly inspiring. In addition to managing day-to-day operations at the Research Office, she has led countless research development initiatives, including major infrastructure projects. Her role in the grant application for the Brain-Heart Interconnectome (BHI)—the scope, complexity and excellence of which was a first for uOttawa—has resulted in uOttawa’s largest ever grant of over $109 million. She worked tirelessly with teams at Central and the Heart Institute on all aspects of grant preparation and submission, assembling a cohesive budget and budget justification leading not only to the historic grant, but a budget allowing researchers to conduct ground-breaking, interdisciplinary research into brain–heart disorders.
Award for Impact in Research
Angela Marcantonio – Research Facilitator, Department of Emergency Medicine, Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
Angela is instrumental to the Department of Emergency Medicine (DEM)’s research success. As the backbone of the Department and participating in almost every aspect of its very active research program, her passion for its research productivity and excellence has positively impacted all staff, residents, and fellows conducting research. She expertly navigates residents through orientation, mentor pairing, and submission of ethics applications, abstracts and manuscripts and assists all faculty and research fellows with ethics, abstract, grant and manuscript submissions. Her “can-do” attitude ensures problems are anticipated, averted and solved as efficiently as possible. Her input and diligence have helped the program thrive to become arguably the largest and most recognized emergency medicine research program in Canada, if not the world.
Award for Impact in Education
Cheryl Geymonat – Executive Director, Department of Emergency Medicine
The cornerstone of the educational offerings of the Department of Emergency Medicine (DEM), Cheryl is responsible for overall oversight, administration, and human resource management of all the academic educational programs within the DEM, as well as for overseeing its expanding continuing professional development activities and programs. Her dedication ensures smoothly functioning programs, effective and efficient procedures, supportive and bullet-proof policies and department-wide quality assurance activities. She connects with departments leaders across the Faculty to ensure the DEM’s educational programs are leading best practices in administration and innovation. The DEM’s educational programs have grown and become nationally and internationally renowned under her guidance, and every educational leader and administrator has benefitted from her steadfast support.
Award for Impact in Education
Tiffany Gervais – Undergraduate Medical Education Coordinator, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology
With exemplary passion and dedication, Tiffany actively seeks feedback in order to innovate and improve the program, impacting the lives of her Faculty colleagues and medical students alike. When the pandemic began, Tiffany worked closely with her rotation director to seamlessly shift curriculum delivery to virtual platforms and drove innovative ways to collaborate and improve the virtual delivery of the core lecture series; she has also improved work efficiencies by streamlining internal administrative processes and rotation templates. Tiffany ensures students and those on elective rotations have the best possible rotation experience, and seeks ways to make interdisciplinary teaching exposure opportunities available. Students share glowing feedback for her commitment to their experience and how she has enriched their learning.
Award for the Promotion of la Francophonie and Francophilie
Maddie Venables – Academic Research Advisor, Department of Family Medicine
Dr. Venables is a champion for the advancement of la Francophonie. She fosters partnerships with francophone institutions, exploring avenues to develop and offer educational resources benefitting both the anglophone and francophone populations; she has been pivotal in facilitating conversations and in-person visits to La Cité collégiale to discuss current initiatives and potential future collaborations between the institutions. Within the Department, she is dedicated to promoting the use of French, setting a powerful example by ensuring all documents and communications are available in French; and she encourages resident learners, including those outside French learning primary care units, to submit required reports in their preferred language, including French. She reviews French-translated texts from colleagues to ensure a bilingual standard of quality.
Award for Promotion of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, Indigenization and Accessibility
Eman Mugamai – Research Administrative Assistant, Ottawa Hospital Research Institite
Eman delivers exceptional service with remarkable enthusiasm, diligence, and impeccable organizational skills as she seamlessly handles a wide array of clinical and research-related responsibilities. Her contributions have advanced the mission of the Faculty and the Bridge Engagement Centre and have been pivotal in improving the health and well-being of disadvantaged communities through a people-first research approach. She ensures that the principles of equity, diversity, and inclusion are tangible practices that benefit a significant portion of marginalized communities. Eman has been complimented by study participants and community peer researchers working at the Centre, no small feat as trust and engagement are scarce in populations who self-identify as homeless, at risk for homelessness, low income, or racialized (including Indigenous peoples).
Award for Promotion of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, Indigenization, and Accessibility
Mélanie Rioux – Senior Advisor, Research and Programs, Research Office
Mélanie has had a tremendous impact on research excellence across the Faculty and affiliated research institutes. She is a driving force in advancing EDI within the research portfolio, fostering an equitable, inclusive and unbiased environment in which research can thrive through a diversity of perspectives, thereby enhancing the Faculty’s capacity to tackle complex issues. She is the Faculty EDI representative on Canada Research Chair Selection committees and supports research teams in integrating EDI best practices within their research programs. She identifies potential biases and systemic barriers and develops solutions, including tracking representation of the Faculty’s diverse research community within the awards portfolio to monitor progress on increasing EDI, identify potential barriers to access, and support the development of corrective measures.
Award for Professionalism
Natalia Szerszunowicz – Clinical Research Coordinator, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
A dedicated leader and emerging clinician scientist, Natalia embodies the Bridge Engagement Centre’s core values of equity and community-engaged research. She has made a positive impression on the Bridge community’s researchers, participants and staff, despite challenges in engaging systemically oppressed populations in research, specifically people experiencing homelessness, those at risk of homelessness, low-income racialized individuals, and Indigenous communities. In collaborating with people with lived/living experience, she consistently demonstrates compassion and an unwavering commitment to the well-being of all, and ensures the production of high-quality data despite the fast-paced and unique research environment. Her success can be attributed to her self-directed nature, an openness to take on new tasks, and her ability to learn quickly and adapt to change.
Award for Professionalism
Kerry Winnemore – Alumni Relations and Community Engagement
Kerry stands out not merely for her expertise and knowledge but for the meticulous manner in which she practices professionalism every day, bringing unparalleled integrity, authenticity and respect. She fosters collaborations, bridging gaps between units and ensuring fluid communications. She has ensured new members are given a solid foundation and feel welcomed, valued and set up for success, and she combines her win-win approach with a steadfastness in keeping the team’s focus on track. Her professionalism shines brightest during challenging times; during team absences and pandemic obstacles, she exceeded expectations, ensuring Faculty objectives were met with grace and diligence. An attentive listener, she values every team member’s input; her door is always open, symbolizing her commitment to open dialogue.
Award for Service Excellence
Kayla Hébert-Desnoyers – Manager, Faculty Affairs
Never afraid to take on a challenge, Kayla brings a spirit of enthusiasm, initiative and teamwork as she manages multiple tasks. When virtual communication and meetings became the norm during the pandemic, her innovation, dedication and support was particularly evident given the importance of clear communication among the often-sensitive context of the office’s multiple portfolios. She has helped develop many tools to advance the knowledge around professionalism, including self-learning electronic modules for use across the faculty, addressing a gap and requiring extensive coordination with content experts and web designers. The ultimate professional, Kayla is well respected by faculty and she serves as an excellent role model to her peers.
Award for Service Excellence
Pasquale Donovan – Supervisor, Faculty Payroll & HR
Pasquale’s dedicated leadership of the launch of Workday at the Faculty level, combined with balancing her day-to-day management duties, has been truly remarkable. Demonstrating resourcefulness, knowledge and outstanding logic, she sought out information from parties across the University and drew on her in-depth knowledge of uOttawa processes, procedures and policies to predict the system’s functionality at the Faculty. Upon its launch, Pasquale spent countless evenings on calls with central Payroll and Workday project teams to troubleshoot and solve broader University level issues, sharing lessons learned at the Faculty to help colleagues from across the University avoid similar pitfalls. Her leadership set the Faculty up for tremendous success, minimizing impacts on students and staff.
Award for Service Excellence
Khadije Sobh – Undergraduate Medical Education Coordinator, Department of Psychiatry
Dedicated to improving undergraduate medical education, Khadije shows flexibility and adaptability in her support of staff and students. With continual deadlines and changes in UGME combined with increasing needs for support, her position is demanding, and she has risen to the challenge with minimal training. She has made several notable improvements in the teaching program, led the coordination of communication and collaboration among program team members, improved exam quality by reforming the exam bank, and streamlined the process of finding preceptors for students. She helped design a virtual isolation curriculum, benefitting many students unable to attend in person in meeting their objectives. Learners have shared that their interest in psychiatry was largely influenced by experiences stemming from Khadjie’s efforts.
Award for Innovation
Oksana Sasovska – User Interface and Experience Designer, Department of Family Medicine
Faculty and learners alike are benefitting from the vast portfolio of resources for the e-learning curriculum developed in-house at the Department of Family Medicine, which are engaging, user-friendly, accessible and relatable thanks to Oksana’s contributions. Her service excellence bridges the gap between the Department’s software developers and the needs and demands of its faculty and learners, striving to ensure their needs are met. With professionalism, dedication and artistry, she balances individual preferences while approaching her work with an EDI lens, to bring brainstorming sessions to life. Her work with faculty, staff and learners is instrumental in meeting the department’s strategic goals and enriching the learner experience.
Team Awards
Award for Impact in Research
Common Equipment and Technical Services (CETS)
Bingbing Han, Sylvain Huard, Yi Huo, Hui Li, Genevieve Paris and Zi Zhang
Through their unwavering dedication, expertise and commitment to enabling cutting-edge research, the CETS team supports and expands the research capabilities of the Faculty’s laboratories and advances scientific endeavors across various disciplines. Their collective decades of laboratory experience allows them to troubleshoot and devise innovative solutions to diverse technical issues, elevating the quality and efficiency of research projects. In addition to ensuring the seamless operation of the Faculty’s fleet of 100+ shared equipment items and providing technical support to individual laboratories, the team monitors equipment alarms, rescuing priceless reagents from failing freezers and providing peace of mind to researchers. Their approachability and commitment to bilingual service foster a welcoming and inclusive atmosphere where researchers can feel comfortable asking for help.
Award for the Promotion of la Francophonie and Francophilie
Divya Babbar, Monika MacLaren and Amneet Singh (the Office of Marketing and Communications) and Daniel Hubert (Francophone Affairs)
The recent collaboration between MarCom and Francophone Affairs highlights their commitment to going above and beyond. For the last two years, the Faculty’s web team (based in MarCom) has worked hard to migrate the Faculty’s sites from Drupal 7 to 9, a complex and time sensitive process originally intended for Central’s web team but downloaded to MarCom on short notice. Besides doing a tremendous job with the migration, MarCom made a bilingual presence a priority, coming together with Francophone Affairs based on longstanding collaborations to rise to the challenge. Then teams displayed initiative, commitment and positivity in their concerted effort to translate and adapt departmental websites to better support French-speaking audiences, illustrating the Faculty's commitment to inclusion and la Francophonie, as well as to expanding its reach to the Francophone community.
Award for Leadership in Wellness
TOH Schwartz Rounds Leadership Team
Heather Bousada, Sarah Silverstein
Heather and Sarah are fostering an environment of compassion and support at TOH by facilitating Schwartz Rounds, a novel initiative aimed at improving wellness and engagement for all hospital staff and physicians. Schwartz rounds provide a safe place for staff to reflect on the socio-emotional impacts of providing care to patients. Topics range from pandemic challenges, moral distress and patient death, to celebrating magic in health care and gratitude during adversity. Over 1000 staff, learners and physicians associated with the Faculty have participated; feedback praises their expert facilitation and ability to validate and normalize the emotions of health care providers, and participants cite feeling better prepared to handle difficult situations, gaining greater insight into coworkers’ experiences, feeling less isolated in their work with patients and a greater sense of belonging to the caregiver team.
Award for Service Excellence
The Office of Continuing Professional Development (OCPD)
Allysa Almstedt, Christine Cool, Pamela Giroux, Michael Kelly, Philippe Leblanc, Sheena Levesque, Kaitlin Moberg, Sara Munroe, Sophia Pacheco, Kassaundra Richards and Janine Smith
The CPD team provides excellence in service to clients and learners as they support an array of programs, including faculty events, faculty development and medical education, all professionally and competently guided from initial setup through to completion. Without a senior manager for most of the year, CPD’s planners kept the office on track by assuming various managerial responsibilities. The team readily adapted to virtual learning during the pandemic, pivoting back to in-person events while maintaining a high degree professionalism. Events and lectures are touted as motivating and engaging for participants, who regularly share their enthusiastic and positive feedback. The team has received copious praise for their care and efficiency, hard work, superb organization and impeccable coordination in their delivery of high-calibre events.
