Introduced in 1977, this award honors professional staff members whose extraordinary service contributions have significantly enriched the university. Award recipients have served energetically, innovatively and knowledgeably in their fields.
University Communications
News content manager for the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Ellen Goldbaum-Kolin has helped elevate the school’s reputation by writing hundreds of news releases about the groundbreaking research and clinical care taking place there, as well as the school’s service to the community. Her focus on the school’s front-line care and pioneering discoveries related to COVID-19 has solidified the school’s reputation as a national leader in this public health crisis. Over the course of her 30-plus years at UB, she has established herself as a trusted advisor whom faculty regularly seek out to prepare for media interviews. With her communications colleagues, she has facilitated discussions on ways to better incorporate principles of diversity and inclusion into their work.
Campus Living
Interim director for residential life in Campus Living, Meegan Hunt is responsible for the supervision and training of approximately 50 professional staff and 220 resident advisors. Her multifaceted approach to her profession is widely beneficial to the stakeholders with whom she works as she collaborates across campus with University Police, the Office of Inclusive Excellence, the Educational Opportunity Program and many others. With over 20 years of experience in different roles within Campus Living, Hunt was prepared to effectively manage the profound effects of COVID-19 on residential and university life and focus on the health, safety and development of UB’s 8,000 residential students.
Department of Biological Sciences
An instructional support technician in the Department of Biological Sciences, Barbara McCabe excels in a broad range of responsibilities, including maintaining the functionality of teaching laboratory equipment, preparing educational exhibits and demonstrations, maintaining inventory and ordering supplies for instructional labs, and providing training and supervision to teaching assistants assigned to laboratory sections. Additionally, she troubleshoots lab exercises and provides critical input in the development of new labs and laboratory instruction in the curriculum. Managing more than 1,000 students and more than 50 lab sections, McCabe has been instrumental in enhancing the lab curriculum for her department’s introductory labs, which have become more organized and streamlined as a result.
Department of Health Promotion
The violence prevention program coordinator and associate director of the Department of Health Promotion for the Office of Student Life, Anna Sotelo-Peryea works to cultivate a campus culture that promotes healthy, equitable relationships and eliminates sexual violence. Shortly after joining the university, she instituted a campuswide needs assessment to evaluate the prevalence, impact, knowledge, attitudes and beliefs of students, faculty and staff regarding sexual violence; she also assessed existing services, programs and resources. She then designed and oversaw implementation of UB’s Sexual Violence Prevention & Response Program, which ranks in the top 6% nationally and earned UB the Campus Prevention Network’s National Prevention Excellence Award (2017) and Seal of Prevention (2021).
Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
Sofia Tangalos is the senior staff assistant for the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences’ Office of Faculty Affairs. As such, she is the first line of communication with faculty and staff regarding faculty development and promotions. She has had a significant impact on faculty seeking promotion, and she regularly meets with dozens of individual faculty members at all ranks to review their qualifications. In her leadership role for the school’s ad hoc promotions committees, she has contributed valuable procedures to the review process, including establishing online dossier sharing. Deeply knowledgeable about university guidelines regarding promotions, she has provided expert advice to faculty in writing and organizing their personal statements and CVs.
Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
Director of graduate enrollment, biomedical education in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Elizabeth White maintains close ties to professionals in academic units across campus who have similar roles and responsibilities for graduate student services, event management and administration. She has co-led UB’s Academic Health Center (AHC) Recruitment Collaboration since its creation in 2017 and has been highly instrumental in its accomplishments, including extensive communications to UB undergraduates, AHC website updates, creation of an AHC logo and recruitment webinars. As chair for the working group that re-envisioned the UB Undergraduate Research Conference, after the in-person event was cancelled due to the pandemic, she helped create fully virtual national conferences beginning in 2020. In the Jacobs School, she has been instrumental in enhancing recruitment strategies and streamlining graduate admission practices, resulting in increased enrollment.
