Carole Verdone-Smith, Sandra Lalli, and Dr. Kim Metera named Faculty of Science Excellence Awards winners
Carole Verdone-Smith (Management Staff), Sandra Lalli (Technical Staff), and Dr. Kim Metera (Administrative Staff) have been named recipients of the Faculty of Science Excellence Awards for their contributions to the management and success of the Faculty during the 2022-2023 academic year. The awards were announced on May 23. Read below the citations prepared by the Faculty of Science Excellence Awards Committee.
As Communications Administrator for the Department of Biology, and Deputy Building Director of the Stewart Biology Building, Carole Verdone-Smith wears many hats. She has managed floods and catastrophic breakdowns, numerous renovations for new hires and CFI projects, airborne asbestos monitoring, and she has a critical role in the Stewart redevelopment project that has extended for many years. She excels in all these roles, which require her to liaise regularly with staff and students in Biology and Psychology, construction crews, project managers, McGill Facilities, and senior administration. Her response to the recent three-week closure of Stewart after flooding was truly impressive. She took video of the incident during the night, and by Day 1 already had a list of critical operations requiring immediate attention and emergency access, emphasizing locations that house live animals. Thanks to her preparedness and willingness to work nearly non-stop during crises, she saved years of research work by quickly organizing emergency access and continued animal care for both Biology and Psychology.
For these and many other reasons, I am very happy to present the Faculty of Science Excellence Award for Management Staff to Carole Verdone-Smith.
As Course Technician, Sandra Lalli has been responsible since 2016 for preparing the lab components for more than 10 different courses in the Department of Chemistry that together serve over 1,000 students each year. The smooth operation of these courses is essential. Thanks to her great knowledge, energy, friendly nature, and high degree of professionality, Sandra ensures that these labs run without problems and that students receive the best quality experience. Sandra is always willing to take on additional tasks when they arise, such as filling in for colleagues on leaves of absence. Even more remarkably, in order to manage a course that was added to her responsibilities, Sandra mastered High Performance Liquid Chromatography, a complex analytical technique, not just to the degree of being able to do it, but to the level of being able to fix and significantly improve the performance of the 30-year-old equipment that was available in the lab!
For all these reasons and many more, I am very happy to present the Faculty of Science Excellence Award for Technical Staff to Sandra Lalli.
As Academic Associate in the Department of Physics, Dr. Kim Metera’s core responsibility is to ensure that students get help with navigating their academic journeys at McGill, making certain that course requirements are fulfilled and that students in need receive advice as to how best to proceed. Thanks to her diligence and keen personal interest in every student, Dr. Metera fulfills this role with true excellence. She never fails to go the extra mile for students; in one case spending weeks of effort to secure an emergency bursary for a student in danger of dropping out because of financial difficulties. In addition, Dr. Metera’s contributions extend far beyond this core responsibility. She has co-founded and co-developed a new outreach initiative called Science in Space, which provides opportunities in STEM learning to students of underrepresented genders aged 10-14. She partnered with graduate students to establish a Mental Health Task Force that is credited with having a major positive impact in the department, and she has been instrumental in efforts aimed at improving equity, diversity, inclusion, and departmental climate.
For all these reasons and many more, I am very happy to present the Faculty of Science Excellence Award for Administrative Staff to Dr. Kimberly Metera.