Established in 2008, this award recognizes classified staff members for exceptional achievements and superior performance of duties. Award recipients continuously demonstrate outstanding achievement, commitment to excellence and exemplary customer service.
Department of Rehabilitation Science
Keyboard specialist in the School of Public Health and Health Professions’ Department of Rehabilitation Science, Karen Barnes has cultivated an expansive network of coworkers, collaborators and resources across the university, allowing her to respond to the needs of her department with efficiency and agility. A member of the UB community for more than 20 years, she is responsible for event planning, purchasing regulations, grant spending reporting and applying awards to student accounts. Barnes is also focused on filling customer service gaps, preventing issues before they occur, creating more efficient systems within the department, ensuring technology tools are used to their full potential and centralizing submission forms.
Department of Ophthalmology
Elaine C. Taylor is residency training program administrator and administrative assistant to the chair of the Department of Ophthalmology in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. She is responsible for a wide range of professional responsibilities, including preparing faculty promotion dossiers and faculty reappointments, managing the State and Research Foundation budgets and coordinating all Continuing Medical Education activity within the department—for example, creating program brochures, collecting registration fees, tracking expenses and attending each conference. In addition, she manages the resident application process and schedules medical students and residents who rotate through the department. On behalf of the department chair, she schedules and coordinates meetings, appointments and travel arrangements.
Campus Mail Services
Office assistant in the University at Buffalo’s Department of Campus Mail Services, Michelle VanDewalker oversees the sorting and documenting of the thousands of United States Postal Service packages delivered to UB every day. In addition, she applies postage to outgoing packages and completes an extensive list of daily clerical duties including data entry, photocopying, filing and responding to email inquiries. VanDewalker is held in the highest regard for her deep institutional knowledge of campus units, which helps ensure smooth and seamless mail delivery to faculty, students and staff across UB.
