The EEE department has announced our latest award winners.

The Celebrating Great Contributions Awards were presented by Head of Department Professor Eric Yeatman at our summer staff party on Friday. They recognise and reward the achievements, skills and efforts of our colleagues who help make the department a better place to work and study.

The winners are chosen by a panel of colleagues from across the Department, from nominations in five categories. 

Colleague Appreciation ‘Pass it on’ Award

This award is made in recognition of staff who make a particular effort and go out of their way to help and support their colleagues. Two awards have been made in this category.

Kelly Greenwood

Colleagues praised our Student Wellbeing Advisor for her understanding of students’ experiences and concerns, her professionalism and dedication in the role, and her work to help the whole department ensure students receive help when they need it.

“Kelly understands the challenges students face, and she is an excellent help to all the tutors. I can refer my student to her and be confident that they will get the best possible support. Thank you for the amazing job you are doing.”

“Kelly is very knowledgeable, she cares about students’ wellbeing and is always willing to run different sessions to support their resilience and help them focus on their studies. She is also keen to share her knowledge with others which in turn helps us do our jobs better in supporting students. It is great to have an experienced person in the department you can get quick support from.”

“Kelly has worked above and beyond since she joined us, she is an invaluable part of the department, and really cares about the students. She works harder than anyone I know —she's amazing.”

Guler Eroglu

As one of the two Research Group Administrators in our Control and Power Group, Guler has been in the role for nearly 10 years, and her nominations highlight the high levels of competence, attention to detail, and the personal skills that she brings to this key role supporting the group’s finance, HR and research activities.

“Guler goes out of her way to solve tricky and specific situations with contracts, accounts etc, rightly prioritising the human resources. She has a great sense of responsibility, and it makes a difference knowing that someone with her level of competence and personal values deals with crucial matters in our group.”

“Guler is meticulous and she delivers always in a very fair and transparent manner. Our researchers appreciate her inclusive and listening approach to their operational needs.”

“Guler is approachable and very proactive. She has made my work a lot easier saving me on multiple occasions from nightmarish administrative traps I couldn't handle. I think she deserves recognition from the Department for the good work she has done.”

Teamwork/Collaboration Award

Christos Bouganis

Adrià Junyent-Ferré

John Wickerson

Christos, Adrià and John formed a new team in a new undergraduate leadership structure for this academic year, and have worked together to instigate and oversee novel initiatives which have been embraced by colleagues and students.

As Deputy DUGS for the EEE and EIE streams, Adria and John have introduced the Hardware Showcase and Meet The Profs lecture series to help students make an informed choice of degree path at the end of first year.

“John and Adrià have contributed to the building of the community within the Department by working to reduce the divide between students and staff/research by showcasing our research to students and also humanising the professors.”

“One 4th year said to us ‘the event was great for students who wanted to find out the exciting projects the department is working on. I wish that I had had this when I was a 1st Year student!’ ”

“Christos has taken on the challenging role of DUGS, and has been doing it extremely well. I have been enormously impressed by the way he has "led from the front", by doing an awful lot of work himself, setting an inspiring example. He has sought not just to keep up with the demands of the role, but to take extra steps to improve the role (and the department as a whole) for the longer term, which is most impressive. He has been a kind and thoughtful Chair of the Teaching Committee. Thank you!!”

Rising Star Award

The Rising Star Award celebrates staff who have begun their career or changed role in the Department in the last two years. It recognises an individual who has created or grasped an opportunity to substantially develop and grow in their role.

The panel made two awards in this category:

Ella Greenhalgh

Ella joined the Education Team during a difficult time when the team was working remotely, and her nomination recognises how she has managed all those difficulties, and the transition to in-person teaching and assessment, and has become an invaluable member of the undergraduate team.

“Ella communicates very well with colleagues and students and has taken up a lot of new responsibilities. I particularly want to highlight this year’s summer term exam period as it was the first time we had held exams on campus since 2019 and most of the team dealing with the exams were new so there was a lot for us all to learn. There were a lot of unforeseen difficulties that happened either in the run up to the exam period or during it and Ella took all of these in her stride and handled them all very professionally and with great initiative, while also working long hours to ensure that everything ran smoothly. I am grateful to have Ella in our team.”

Sarim Baig

Sarim was appointed as Software Engineering Teaching Fellow last October, and was assigned significant teaching duties from the start, teaching programming to first- and second-year undergraduate students and supporting second year projects, and giving tutorials. The award reflects how much he is already valued for his dedicated approach to his teaching.

“Sarim is passionate about teaching and spends long hours with the students to help them with programming tasks. He is also supporting the students with the second-year projects. It is rare to see someone taking up so much teaching load straightaway. He has become an essential member of the department in just two terms. I think he is an ideal role model for people who are starting a teaching job. I am impressed by his dedication by how much he cares about his students. This is something we can all learn from him.”

Department Award for Citizenship and Community

This award recognises an individual who has been a good citizen within the Department, or made an exceptional contribution benefitting the Department or wider college community. Two awards have been made in this round:

Thomas Parisini

Thomas led the department’s REF submission as our Director of Research — it was a huge undertaking that was extremely successful. This success will help us to attract the most talented students and new staff to the department, allow us to evidence the impact of our internationally-leading research on the world, and directly increase our core funding, for years to come. His contributions have undoubtedly benefitted our department as well as the Faculty and the College.  

The award acknowledges Thomas’s outstanding effort and judgement in coordinating the contributions of over 50 staff, about 150 submitted research outputs and their accompanying significance statements, and the several impact case studies that EEE led or contributed to.  This was an intense and demanding task, particularly as much of it was conducted during 2019-21 during the Covid period, with its many added challenges.

“Thomas was a great colleague this year, always there, working unbelievably hard and showing great work ethic on multiple occasions. Besides, he did a great job in managing the REF submission of the department, a task that took several years and in which the department was eventually highly successful."

“Thomas handled the large and complex task of REF, including responding to numerous demanding requests from the College, often at very short notice. At the same time he made a major contribution to our teaching innovation with his new drones-based control lab, which allowed students to carry out sophisticated experiments even when operated remotely during the lockdown period.”

Emma Rainbow

Emma’s award acknowledges her role as an outstanding colleague and team player in our department, through her mentorship of others, and her all-round contribution to making our department a better place in which to work — and also to study.

“Emma has been so supportive of me since I joined the department and she always goes above and beyond for everyone she works with, whether that is another member of the Education team, academic staff or students. I am particularly grateful for her help during the summer term exam period as we would not have coped without all the extra work she put in to help out with exams which is not part of her role. Emma is always supportive, patient and happy to give her time to help everyone and I think this should be recognised. Thank you Emma.”

“Emma is enormously generous with her time, even though she must have endless demands on it from students and staff alike. She's fantastically helpful, a wonderful colleague, and very much appreciated!”

“Emma takes care of students in a professional and timely way. She is always available to students and solves the strangest problems that they encounter. Her professionalism, attention to detail, empathy, sense of humour and organisation are instrumental to her success across all areas of her work, and make my job very easy -- I simply ask her to solve whatever problem I am faced with and wait a couple of days to see it resolved.”

Inspiration Award

Our final award is for a colleague who has inspired others throughout the year, either through the activities they have carried out at work or outside of Department life.

Alice Ashley-Smith

Alice’s award celebrates the transformative and inspirational contributions she has made since joining our department as Department Operations Manager in 2019, which are helping us become a more collegiate, supportive, inclusive and welcoming place to work, both through the initiatives she has introduced and through her outstanding skills as a leader.

“Alice values people above the tasks they do, and places individual wellbeing as well as community at the heart of our department life — organising our first inclusive Department Away Day, instigating these recognition awards, providing forums for colleagues to exchange information, encouraging social events, supporting internal communications to make sure people stay connected, and making sure we participate in College and Faculty initiatives. Alice leads by example. She is a complete professional, and in turn recognises the professionalism and the skills and aspirations of others. Her sense of fairness, openness and equality informs decisions and processes. She combines a highly perceptive eye and listening ear with an extremely down-to-earth and approachable manner, which helps quietly join up any gaps between various teams, committees and opens up lines of communication. As a line manager Alice’s ability and willingness to delegate and devolve significant responsibilities shows a level of trust in her team leaders that has benefitted the whole department. In a very short time, she has managed to transform the department professionally and culturally, and it is a better place to work thanks to her appointment.”

“Alice makes the department a happier place with her friendly personality and a positive attitude. She appreciates jobs well done and doesn’t hesitate to say ‘thank you’. She makes sure everyone is always up-to-date on the things they need to know. She cares about people and their wellbeing, is approachable, respectful and very professional. She always finds a solution to even the trickiest of problems. We are incredibly fortunate to have her as our DOM.”

Congratulations to all our award winners, and thank you to everyone who made nominations.