Imperial celebrates 2024 winners of staff recognition awards

Winners of Imperial’s Staff Recognition Awards were celebrated at a special ceremony last week.

The Staff Recognition Awards provide an opportunity to recognise and celebrate Imperial’s staff and students for their vital contributions to the university’s community.

It also recognises staff who have supported important projects, provided excellent service, taken on new challenges or gained a qualification while demonstrating commitment to the university’s values and behaviours: Respect, Collaboration, Excellence, Integrity, and Innovation. Nominations for the awards are submitted by peers and colleagues at the university.

The staff recognition awards bring together several different award schemes. They are:

President's Awards for Excellence in Culture & Community, Education, Research, Societal Engagement
Julia Higgins Medal and Awards
Provost's Awards for Excellence in Health and Safety
Provost's Awards for Excellence in Animal Research
Imperial Garden Party

Professor Hugh Brady, President of Imperial College London, and Professor Ian Walmsley, Provost of Imperial College London, said:

“On this special occasion we recognise and celebrate staff and students, who have been nominated by their peers, for their exceptional contributions to Imperial.

“Our nominees and winners embraced new challenges, generated and applied new knowledge and technologies, championed our values and provided excellent service. Congratulations to everyone being recognised through these awards.

“Your dedication and collective ambition to make the world a better place inspires others, and we are proud to be your colleagues.”

We spoke to some of this year’s winners to celebrate their achievements.

Dr Sharron Stubbs, Head of Infrastructure Operations, Department of Infectious Diseases
Winner of the President’s Award for Excellence in Sustainability (Individual Award)

Sharron has led the way for the Faculty of Medicine to engage with sustainability initiatives across all departments and campuses.
Sustainability was previously a topic covered as part of the safety committee, but Sharron’s ambition meant she created a brand-new sustainability committee for the Faculty of Medicine which she now leads. Her leadership has ensured that the Faculty of Medicine is leading the way for engagement in the Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework (LEAF) - an environmental accreditation scheme designed to improve sustainability within higher education. Around 31 per cent of the laboratories have achieved a bronze award or better, the highest across the three eligible faculties.

Sustainable laboratories

During the COVID-19 pandemic Sharron demonstrated innovation and engaged with Green Light Laboratories to complete a behavioural audit of the Commonwealth Building at Imperial’s Hammersmith Campus. Numerous short-term sustainability savings were highlighted including the warming up of Ultra Low Temperature Freezers from -80C to -70C saving approximately 30 per cent of total energy per unit.

I was so thrilled and proud to accept this award and to lead the faculty on sustainability. The enthusiasm to improve sustainability across the Faculty of Medicine was a major driver for the initiative I led going back to 2018. Dr Sharron Stubbs Head of Infrastructure Operations, Department of Infectious Diseases

Based on the successful collaboration with Green Light Laboratories that Sharron established, the property team invested in a larger audit in 2023. It extended this time to the Imperial Centre for Translational and Experimental Medicine (ICTEM) Building at Hammersmith Campus and Molecular Science Research Hub at White City Campus. The outcomes of this audit have empowered Sharron and the senior laboratory managers make actionable change in their spaces using the data. They were also able to demonstrate excellence and integrity with the incredible progression that was made in Commonwealth Building, with many more ultra-low temperature freezers tuned down to -70C and kept in a much-improved condition.

Sustainable actions

Sharron’s support for sustainability has also empowered others in the team to explore sustainability as a priority item in laboratories, with sustainability champions across many of the departments within medicine. They are taking pro-active action with recycling, reduction of waste and water campaigns.

Commenting on the award, Sharron said:

“I was so thrilled and proud to accept this award and to lead the faculty on sustainability. The enthusiasm to improve sustainability across the Faculty of Medicine was a major driver for the initiative I led going back to 2018.

“We have a vast estate in the faculty, across seven of the campuses, and hold a very large amount of equipment. I am extremely impressed with the way the departments have embraced the freezer project we set up in the faculty to reduce the numbers and increase the running temperatures of the freezers, the LEAF and MY green Labs certifications, and the new sustainability advisory group.”

Sustainability – The Centre of Inflammatory Disease (CID) Green Team, Department of Immunology and Inflammation
President’s Award for Excellence in Sustainability (Team Award)

The Centre of Inflammatory Disease (CID) Green Team is made up of Lyndon Costa, Alice Denton, Neil Galloway-Phillipps, Christina Malaktou, Stacey McIntyre, Kerry Rostron-Barrett and Kassandra Vezyrgianni. They are making transformative changes in the way the Department of Immunology and Inflammation conducts laboratory work and are driving initiatives with significant impact for the entire university.

At the beginning of the 2023/24 academic year the departmental executive board made sustainability one of the key goals for the year. A team of volunteers called the ‘CID Green Team’ was created to drive this forward bringing in members from different backgrounds and levels from within CID.

Reducing waste and energy consumption

Medical research uses ten times the energy and creates four times the waste of an equivalent office space. The CID Green Team has been instrumental in adopting more sustainable practices in the department’s laboratories and driving changes in the way they work.

"It is fantastic that Imperial recognises the importance of sustainability and actively celebrates efforts to implement new and improve on existing practices." Kerry Rostron-Barrett Sustainability Lead for CID

They have introduced a wide range of new schemes to reduce waste and the overall energy consumption and carbon footprint of the centre such as reusing ‘single use’ plastics for non-sterile applications, consolidating consumable orders, recycling nitrile gloves and non-contaminated lab plastics and branding equipment with traffic light system stickers to highlight equipment that can or cannot be turned off at the end of each day.

They have removed desk side bins and replaced them with only centralised waste and recycling bins. This has improved cleaning times for the offices along with improving recycling rates.

Carbon footprint reduction

They also signed the department up to the UniGreen Scheme where a company will take away unused equipment free of charge and sell it on, with the laboratory getting 50 per cent of the profits. This provides a financial benefit but also reduces the carbon footprint of the laboratory.
They also successfully obtained funds from Sustainable Imperial to replace old energy heavy equipment such as drying cabinets and laboratory dishwashers with new energy efficient models.

Commenting on the award, Kerry Rostron-Barrett, Sustainability Lead for CID, said: “It is fantastic that Imperial recognises the importance of sustainability and actively celebrates efforts to implement new and improve on existing practices. We would like to thank those that nominated and selected us to receive the President’s Award.

“This was a huge team effort by all members of CID and I am incredibly proud of what we have achieved together. I would like to say a big thank you to our Green Team volunteers for driving our sustainability efforts day-to-day. They have played a key role in our ability to go all the way from Bronze in February this year to Gold LEAF, resulting in an incredible saving of approximately 23 tonnes of CO2 per year.”

Stephanie Powell, Community Collaboration, School of Public Health
President’s Medal for Excellence in Societal Engagement (Individual)

Stephanie is the Community Collaboration Lead within the Undergraduate Primary Care Education Team, forming links between community-facing organisations and the primary care aspects of the medical degree. She takes an asset-based approach, which involves focusing on communities’ strengths, and ensures they are central to collaborations. She also ensures partnerships have benefit for everyone involved.

Recently, Stephanie established a unique partnership with Expert Focus, an organisation of people with lived experience of homelessness. She worked with them to develop educational materials reflecting lived experience perspectives and priorities, including audio excerpts used in teaching materials.

Promoting health equity

She also leads a course on promoting health equity for third-year medical students. This enables students to learn about health inequities, diverse lived experiences and the work of local community organisations through visits. . For example, students participate in a session at the Mosaic LGBT+ Young Person’s Trust to explore terminology in LGBTQ+ health and engage in a panel discussion where speakers discuss their healthcare experiences. 

"It is a joy to lead projects that enable our faculty and students to work in partnership with community organisations, learning about what matters most to communities and the wealth of experience and insights that they hold." Stephanie Powell Community Collaboration, School of Public Health

Medical students complete community-engaged projects during their GP placements and Stephanie has worked hard to develop student and GP tutor guidance to support with these. This has included developing a scenario with The BME Health Forum – who aim to reduce inequalities in Black and Minority Ethnic communities. As well as student talks from organisations such as The Dalgarno Trust - a community centre in North Kensington and Listen to Act – which aims to improve health and care services by championing the views of local people in Westminster, Kensington & Chelsea, and Fulham & Hammersmith – and QPR in the Community Trust – which works across seven London boroughs to provide opportunities in health, education, social inclusion and participation. She developed a workshop for GP tutors and faculty with Listen to Act, and tools to encourage projects to be asset-based.

Widening participation

She has also been instrumental in developing and running the innovative widening participation programme, widening access to careers in community healthcare (WATCCH). The programme is aimed at motivated Year 12 students from state schools in London who are interested in a career in healthcare. Stephanie has supported the programme to be more accessible while considering community priorities when developing programme content. The programme has supported over 150 young people, with pupils entering careers including medicine, radiography, nursing and dentistry.

Commenting on the award, Stephanie said: It is a joy to lead projects that enable our faculty and students to work in partnership with community organisations, learning about what matters most to communities and the wealth of experience and insights that they hold. This work has transformed our primary care curriculum and to have it recognised in this way is a testament to everyone involved. It is a privilege to work with such fantastic community organisations and to be part of a team that provides constructive challenge and space to reflect. I am excited to see where the work continues to grow.

Imperial As One Media Academy - Communications Division and Imperial As One
President’s Award for Excellence in Culture and Community (Team)

The Imperial As One Media Academy (IAOMA) is a collaborative project between the Communications Division and race equality network Imperial As One.
It is a programme of training workshops covering five key areas of communications and is aimed at and tailored to BME research staff and postgraduate students.
It is organised and delivered by Maxine Myers, Hayley Dunning, Al McCartney, Dr Wayne Mitchell, Ellie Cawthera and Dr Sarah Essilfie-Quaye.

Recent reports have highlighted several challenges facing researchers from underrepresented backgrounds, including lack of representation in the mainstream UK media and disproportionately low research funding from awarding bodies.

Communications skills

The IAOMA aims to increase the visibility of Black Minority Ethnic (BME) researchers at Imperial and help raise awareness of their achievements. It equips researchers with the knowledge and skills to magnify the impact of their work through media, social media, podcasts, videos, writing and the sphere of public affairs and policy. It also aims to give them greater confidence, and tools, for talking to journalists about their work. This has increased the diversity of media-trained individuals from Imperial that journalists can approach for expert commentary.

As well as considering the content of the programme, the organisers have also put a lot of effort into ensuring that the training and workshops are delivered by experts from BME backgrounds as far as possible. The IAOMA committee has developed and delivered three iterations of the programme (2021-2023) on top of their day-to-day roles and successfully applied for grant funding with Research England to expand the programme by partnering with the Institute of Cancer Research, London, for 2024.

Raising BME researchers’ visibility

"The Imperial As One Media Academy is one of the ways we are addressing some of the barriers faced by BME researchers and is an example of our Imperial values in action." Dr Sarah Essilfie-Quaye member of Imperial As One Media Academy team and Group Leader of EQuity Lab

The IAOMA’s achievement was highlighted in Imperial’s Race Equality Action Plan for 2023-2034. Imperial uses AdvanceHE’s Race Equality Charter (REC) as a framework to identify and reflect on institutional and cultural barriers that impact the experiences and progression of Minority Ethnic staff and students and to develop actions to dismantle them.

87 people have graduated from the IAOMA and a recent evaluation of the scheme found that 100 per cent of participants rated the rated the sessions as useful, and 94 per cent said they would apply what they’d learnt on the programme. Some of the participants have featured in media interviews, secured further funding, set up social media accounts and blogs.

Next steps

Commenting on the award, Dr Sarah Essilfie-Quaye, member of Imperial As One Media Academy team and Group Leader of EQuity Lab, said:

“The Imperial As One Media Academy aims to create more opportunities for our BME researchers to be visible and to showcase their expertise.

The inequalities that researchers from minoritised groups face in higher education are well documented. It is an issue that I will explore further in my research.

“The Imperial As One Media Academy is one of the ways we are addressing some of the barriers faced by BME researchers and is an example of our Imperial values in action.

“Working in collaboration with the university’s communications team we have been able to deliver training to over 80 members of staff. It has been great to see how some have taken their learnings and have participated in media interviews and secured further research funding.

“We are very proud and pleased to be recognised for our work. We will continue to build on the impact of the Imperial As One Media Academy and ensure it goes from strength to strength.”

Read more about the nominees and winners.