SAA 2023 Division Winners

Location: UF Professional and Workforce Development

Not only is Katie extremely capable, she is a consummate professional. She represents the University of Florida impeccably. No request is too much trouble. She is responsive to requests and completes tasks at all hours of the day and night. She brings a sense of optimism and positivity to every conversation. Whether working with her virtually or in person, she has a warm and engaging personality. She is responsible for budgets, managing expectations, and ensuring her team meets the terms and conditions of signed contracts. Katie willingly comes in at 6am and leaves at 8pm or later, and works holidays and weekends to satisfy the client’s needs or expectations. Due to her efforts, we were able to meet the needs and exceed expectations of our clients, resulting in generating over $800,000 in revenue. Without Katie at the helm, we would not have realized that revenue.

Location: College of Journalism & Communications | Department of Public Relations

The Department has benefited immensely from Isabella’s efforts! Her positive attitude and ability to be a team player makes for an enjoyable office environment. She is consistently looking for new ways to make the department more modern and to run smoothly and efficiently. The College and Department underwent many changes this past academic year and took on new projects. Bella played a critical role in the successful implementation of many of these initiatives. Bella worked closely with each search committee chair to organize schedules, arrange travel details, and coordinate interviews. All three searches occurred during the same semester, which meant many long nights and additional hours for Bella. She worked tirelessly to ensure there were no missed details and that each candidate had a pleasant experience. Since multiple searches happened at the same time, she was often balancing many things at once. She personally worked with each candidate to ensure all their needs were met, and they each thanked Bella and commented that their UF experience was wonderful because of her.

Location: IFAS | Family Youth & Community Sciences

Andres performed a number of critical actions in support of our proposal, including identifying and accessing sources of county-level data and creating a table that included county-level statistics for all 67 Florida counties; and analyzing data from the current contract to inform proposed deliverables and performance measures.

Location: Business Affairs | Environmental Health and Safety

Joel has made exceptional contributions to the Researcher Safety Department through his excellent hard work and dedication to enriching the lives of students and faculty around him. He has identified various programs that can be enhanced. For example, he streamlined the ordering of stickers, improving customer service in our department. Joel is truly special for his compassion and commitment to helping others and creating a safe environment in our labs. Joel has shown passion and determination to help others. He has not only completed his responsibilities with excellence, but he has gone above and beyond of what is expected of him through helping others and volunteering for special projects to improve the compliance with safety policies, plans, and procedures.

Location: College of Medicine | Department of Health Outcomes and Biomedical Informatics

Donald has effectively continued liaising with an increasing number (up to 13 from 10) of OneFlorida+ Clinical Research Network data partners to effectively onboard new teams, coordinate and communicate project needs, milestones, deliverables and ensuring data deadlines are met. He also liaises with 5 All of USS/SEEC data partners in support of a national NIH research initiative to ensure coordination and communicate project needs, milestones, deliverables and ensuring data deadlines are met. Donald has refined project planning and management of OneFlorida+ Data Trust Characterization work, which is the core backbone of a national clinical research initiative, with quarterly, contractual deliverables. He has broken down larger, nebulous tasks into smaller ones. This has made the work the team has to do more visible and the completion (or impediments) more transparent.

Location: College of Liberal Arts and Sciences | Facilities & Operations

Michael is responsible for the direction, coordination, and administration of building maintenance, renovations, construction, security, communications, property and space accountability, and emergency operations for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Michael is an amazing Facility & Operation Manager. On various occasions, Mr. Whelan has shown superior service to the department of Political Science. Not only has he responded in a timely manner, but made sure the department is kept up to date with the work that is being completed. Michael truly cares about the safety of the students, faculty and staff in each building that he manages. He goes above and beyond to make sure that everyone is out of harms way.

Location: College of Medicine | Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department

Teresa is an Administrative Support Assistant III, within the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department in the College of Medicine at UF. For the last year, her department has been in a state of flux, with the concurrent hiring of a new Chair and Director of Administrative Services. During the search processes to fill these key positions, Teresa has kept the Department functioning. Ms. White played a key role in successfully recruiting new graduate students in both Masters and Ph.D. programs. The department successfully recruited the target number of new students in each program in spite of the peak of COVID-19 cases during the recruitment season.

Location: College of Engineering | Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering

As a Research Administrator I in the Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Amy’s skills and dedication are exemplary for her department colleagues and UF research administrators. By volunteering to train new staff members despite being at a lower salary level and rank than the trainees, Amy set an example for service and humility that inspired other staff in the department. She helped to set and reinforce a culture of community support that we are proud to see across the department and is evident to others in the college. The dedication to making time for training allowed other members of the team to come up to speed as quickly as possible. This dramatically lessened the impact of the staff transition on the PIs who are served by the post-award team, helping to continue timely budget projections and preventing the buildup of corrections and cost transfers that typically occur during heavy periods of turnover or training.

Location: UF/IFAS Shared Service Center

Brittini Balch is the Interim Associate Director of the UF/IFAS Shared Services Center (SSC). The SSC supports more than 18 departments and some of the off-campus Research and Education Centers in UF/IFAS with their fiscal, human resources, and research grant support. Additionally, the SSC is currently understaffed by about 10-12 personnel due to the various systemic pressures in the post-covid era. Brittini has been the glue especially holding the SSC together since the Interim Director went on parental leave at the end of the 21-22 fiscal year.

Location: College of Medicine – Jacksonville | Pediatrics

Since Ms. Brown returned to UF in 2015, she has been an exemplary employee, who has continued to grow in her role and take on added responsibilities. In addition to administrative tasks related to student education, Ms. Brown also assisted students with nearly every aspect of their daily lives, including helping them to find housing, ensuring that they received appropriate health care when needed, and remaining a reliable contact for them whenever any questions arose. Ms. Brown has consistently received the highest praise from students, as well as from others involved in their educational experiences. Additionally, during the AY2021-2022, Ms. Brown was responsible for 1,292 student rotations, by far the most we have ever had. During this time, Ms. Brown was also able to maximize revenue to our programs. Through her efforts this year – ensuring the prompt payment of rotation fees for outside students – we were able to collect over $94,000 to help support our campus and enhance services for our students.

Location: UFIT | Infrastructure & Communication Technology

Nicholas has been moving UFIT from a support function to an innovation and discovery accelerator. Recently, he contributed to troubleshooting and resolving several issues highly impacting the university’s ability to conduct highly visible research projects in the hundreds of millions of dollars. He used his accumulated knowledge and expertise to consult for other research units, proposed new approaches to tackling the vast amount of data analysis using existing infrastructure, and worked weekends to build the transformative change that helped the university maintain its robust research portfolio and contracts. As a result, several research projects delivered their analyses and continue to prosper, and new projects are underway to utilize the power of UFIT infrastructure to boost scholarship and service to our communities.

Location: Housing & Residence Life

One of the biggest annual events in the Division of Student Life is move-in day for Housing moves in thousands of students in just a few short days into the 21 residence halls on campus. Karley is there at every step, leading the way and very clearly showing all the division team members why this is an important part of the student and family experience that we should all be contributing towards. Karley does this every year, but this past year has been a particular challenge as family and students had elevated levels of concern and worry over moving back after being away during COVID. 2021 saw a renewed enthusiasm for living on campus, and Karley helped promote the positivity of move-in with many team members across the division.

Location: Office of Student Financial Aid and Scholarships

Sharon is the Assistant Director of publications and social media in the Office of Student Financial Aid and Scholarships (SFA). In this role, Sharon manages all social media platforms for SFA, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Sharon also maintains the SFA home website, the central informational platform for all current and potential students to learn and understand the financial aid process. In addition, Sharon was instrumental in maintaining the AI chatbot, Alli, by consistently updating the program with financial aid-specific answers. Sharon has been diligent in serving on multiple committees to ensure that SFA receives relevant information about events across campus. Her ongoing work with the Levin College of Law to ensure Constitution Day Events are planned, for example, ensures we are able to continue to receive federal funding.

Location: UF Advancement

Jessica is the Assistant Director of Program Management at UF Advancement. She is UF Advancement’s “Wizard” and when someone has a question about data, reporting, projections, or special projects, they go directly to her. Not only does Jessica correct any issues that arise, but she also digs in to find out why something happened so she can explain to ensure it does not happen again, or she works with colleagues to remedy any breaks in processes. Jessica created a uniformed template and reporting with each of our 13 mini campaign priorities. This includes a standardized meeting structure, reporting, one-pager providing progress to date. A dashboard that recaps this information at the highest level for use by both Advancement Leadership and campus partners.

Location: College of Medicine

Ms. Green, is director of the College of Medicine’s Office of Educational Quality Improvement and Accreditation (OEQIA) and works closely daily with both the Senior Associate Dean for Medical Education and Assistant Dean for EQIA in the COM. Her primary responsibilities are to provide leadership and administrative support to the OEQIA and faculty in the development and delivery of the COM’s educational programs that include medical student, graduate student and physician assistant students. In addition, Ms. Green has stepped forward and assumed additional responsibilities providing administrative support to the College of Medicine Academic Status Committee (ASC), Dean’s Advisory Committee on student appeals, and coordination of student appeals with the University Office of Student Affairs, University General Counsel, and outside agencies such as the State of Florida’s Professional Resource Network (PRN).

Location: Office of Undergraduate Affairs

Casey is the main point of interaction between faculty members submitting requests to the University Curriculum Committee (UCC) and the General Education Committee (GEC). This interaction can be stressful as faculty members rush to prepare their proposals for committee votes. In the last year, Casey has made this process less stressful for faculty members by working with them to address specific committee concerns. Casey has worked with faculty to get 22 new Quest courses approved. In AY2021-2022, with Casey’s assistance, the GEC reviewed 50 General Education courses. Offering these new Quest courses will help with new student registration and create vital connections between UF faculty and students in smaller classroom settings.

Location: College of Veterinary Medicine

Rachel is the Assistant Director for CVM Careers and independently operates and manages the direction, administration, and promotion of experience and employment connections for DVM students within UF’s College of Veterinary Medicine. With strong industry connections, this role acts as a liaison between students and industry while providing students with job search tools and tips, career resources, and how to engage with employers. Additionally, this role annually spearheads and hosts CVM Career Day and strategically plans and delivers co-curriculum professional development programming to complement their didactic and clinical education.

Location: College of Agricultural and Life Sciences

Dr. Larson is the Director of the Center for Online Learning and Technology (COLT) in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. Barbra has the responsibility to lead a five-person team in addition to student workers. COLT’s mission is to provide instructional design support for teaching and extension faculty in IFAS. Dr. Larson and her staff help IFAS faculty, including UF/IFAS Extension educators, to develop courses and training materials for online delivery of education and training of extension clients, stakeholders, and agents in Florida and beyond.

Location: Office of Student Financial Aid and Scholarships

Jordan is the Assistant Director of Scholarships and State Programs in the Office of Student Financial Aid and Scholarships. In this role, she has managed and overseen multiple State Programs, which include Florida Bright Futures, the Benacquisto Scholarship Program, and the Florida Student Assistant Grant for the past two years. Jordan also manages and maintains the Machen Florida Opportunity Scholarship (MFOS). Jordan is responsible for completing an annual or biennial compliance audit with the state of Florida auditors. Under Jordan’s leadership, the State Programs area successfully passed, with no findings or comments.

Location: Center for Latin American Studies

Jessica made two exceptional contributions to the Center for Latin American Studies between August 2021 and July 2022. First, she worked to change our staff culture from fear and anxiety about the future to cooperation and collegiality. Secondly, she was instrumental in drafting two successful proposals to the Department of Education that procured about $2M dollars for four years. Jessica’s ability to communicate with the Center’s Director and advocacy has brought a significant shift in the overall philosophy of how staff are viewed and valued.

Location: Strategic Communications and Marketing

Ana was hired into a newly created role as Associate Director of Digital Marketing with the charge of developing a new front door for the UF homepage – the first one in seven years. With that incredible challenge ahead of her, she has also presented and instituted innovative digital solutions to improve the university’s reputation among peers while helping her team be seen as the experts on campus in this area. She worked tirelessly with the web services team, the web agency, and web strategy committee leading to the launch of the new site, which beautifully dovetailed with the new Momentum brand platform. This core and foundational work is important because it is the front door to the University of Florida in the digital space.

Location: College of Dentistry

Karen is the Director of Communications and is excellent at her communications responsibilities–entailing PR, marketing initiatives, publications, digital communications like website, social media and digital display messaging at the college, media relations, internal communications on behalf of Dean Isabel Garcia & collaboration with alumni and development on fundraising and alumni affairs communications. By tenure and nature, she is the leader-of-the-pack among the six UF Health college communicators and she is admired for looking out and sharing crucial information that benefits all the colleges–sometimes under embargo and in advance–to help everyone adequately prepare for large announcements.

Location: RecSports

Stef has developed a plan to enhance the employee life cycle at the Department of Recreational Sports. From recruitment to on-boarding and training to transitioning and off-boarding, Stef has insured that every employee understands their value at Recreational Sports and feels supported int their development through their tenure.

Location: Office of the Provost | Teaching and Technology

In his role as Associate Director of Operations at UF Online, Nico builds partnership to achieve results and brings innovative ideas to life. Nico has brought innovation and energy to the program, leading the marketing, finance, data analytics, and strategic partnership teams. Nico seeks to streamline operations wherever possible, with efficiency and responsible fund management always top of mind. An accomplished lecturer as well, Nico uses his skills as a teacher in his interactions, thoughtfully guiding his team members and sharing his extensive knowledge of all aspects of higher education. He helped build and launch the Gator Pathways program, an innovative network of pathways for potential students to become part of the Gator Nation.

Location: College of Public Health and Health Professions

Since the day she started as Assistant Director of Administrative Services, Jenna has embodied the philosophy of servant leadership, meaning that she places a primary emphasis on the well-being of those being served. She prioritizes the needs of the department above all else and has been diligent about addressing pain points in order to improve processes for the benefit of administrators, faculty, staff and students. She is inclusive in her approach and really aims to understand issues, thinking of them from all angles to find sustainable solutions to problems. She has made numerous positive changes in the department, and her colleagues are excited to see what else she is able to accomplish moving forward.

Location: College of Pharmacy

Matt is the College of Pharmacy’s Director of Communications, where he leads all external business and marketing communications, as well as the College of Pharmacy website. Matt was critical in synthesizing and presenting the data which helped earn the College of Pharmacy a 2021 and a 2022 Health Professions Higher Education in Diversity, or HEED, Award. Most recently, Matt has increased his production by the creation of and timely delivery of our e-newsletters: an external, quarterly message to our alumni, donors and friends, and a monthly memo to our internal stakeholders. Matt delivers far more in-depth research stories than his peers, and he seeks out and writes extremely creative stories regarding donors, alumni, students and more.

Location: Institute for Child Health Policy

Yijun leads a variety of data elaboration, management, modelling, and analysis projects that feed directly into policymaking and policy evaluation and quality control, with direct impacts on policy and on the health care of vulnerable Texas Medicaid beneficiaries. Some of her major and most impactful contributions include leading the calculation and operationalization of the metric for Potentially Preventable Events (PPE) and the Chronic Illness and Disability Payment System (CDPS) diagnostic-based risk adjustment model for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC). The fact that Yijun is trusted to take primary responsibility for such a high-profile task of great financial consequence is testimony to the high esteem in which she is held and her unquestioned trustworthiness.

Location: IFAS | Department of Animal Sciences

John Bromfield is absolutely dedicated to his research, his students, the department and university, and his scientific discipline. He is already a leader in his department and discipline. He leads an internationally recognized research program in understanding the impact of uterine disease in mammals. This research is particularly important for dairy cattle production because of the high incidence of uterine diseases and the negative, long-term impact of uterine disease on cow fertility. He serves as the Director of the Animal Molecular and Cellular Biology Graduate Program. This is a time-consuming commitment that involves activities of about 15 faculty in several departments across campus directing graduate programs of approximately 10-15 Ph.D. and 5-10 M.S. students.

Location: IFAS | Indian River Research and Education Center

Liliana Cano emerged quietly as a world-renowned plant pathologist. The number of scientists throughout the world who access her work and cite her work in their own investigations is now staggering. Dr. Liliana Cano’s appointment with UF/IFAS at the Indian River Research and Education Center is for research and teaching. She is not responsible for an Extension appointment, yet she is willing to assist homeowners with a plant disease. Dr. Cano works with a University of California-Riverside plant breeder on a grant to improve avocado plant pathogen resistance. Additionally, she accepted another grant to study greasy spot, a disease of citrus. This point is made to show that Dr. Cano’s many projects and involvement greatly exceed expectations for an assistant professor.

Location: College of the Arts | School of Music

In her capacity as Lecturer for the Musicology area in the School of Music, Laura has demonstrated an amazing capacity for thoughtful scholarship and mentorship, an ability to critically assess what is best needed for the students as well as the area and invigorate everyone with whom she works. Due to the nature of Laura’s position as Lecturer, she interfaces every year with the entirety of our undergraduate population at the School of Music through the undergraduate music history curriculum. Laura’s through first-hand knowledge of our previous curriculum and the students’ needs along with her pedagogical knowledge made the process of revising the curriculum incredibly straightforward.

Location: College of Dentistry | Community Dentistry & Behavior Science

On many weekends you will find her giving her time to community health fairs, free dental clinics such as R.A.M. (Rural Area Medical) and FreeDOM Clinic, where she instructs students or provides dental treatment to underserved populations. FreeDOM Clinic provides free dental, optical, and medical care for the uninsured and underinsured. Their mission is to bring health, hope and healing to people in need. In addition to this, Dr. Olga stepped in to take direct responsibility for the outreach dental program that is run out of our NCEF Pediatric Dentistry Residency program in Naples. Through funding from the Naples Children’s Education Foundation (NCEF), the community outreach program provides dental screening and preventive care to children and adolescents in Collier County including those living in Immokalee, a community with a high concentration of seasonal farm workers and their families.

Location: UF Counseling and Wellness Center

Dr. Escoto has many levels of daily duties yet still manages to think globally for not just CWC Faculty & Staff, but for the entire UF community of faculty, staff, and most importantly, our UF students. He demonstrates supportive leadership and expresses creativity in always remaining open to new ideas and innovation towards UF mental health business and treatment models. Dr. Escoto has put in great effort in establishing, maintaining, & advocating for our CWC Consultation & Referral Team (CART), which consists of a specialized team of counseling professionals tasked with providing mental health consultation services, urgent/emergent counseling, and referral and connection to resources.

Location: IFAS | Department of Plant Pathology

Jose Huguet-Tapia is currently a research scientist at the Department of Plant Pathology. Jose has contributed exemplary scientific research in the cutting-edge area of genomics and bioinformatics. Dr. Huguet-Tapia has been a co-principal investigator on multiple research grants, including those funded by USDA-NIFA and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Fitting his research expertise, he has been an ad-hoc reviewer for several research journals including Crop Science, Scientific Reports, and Molecular Genetics and Genomics. Beyond his research appointment, Dr. Huguet-Tapia taught courses for graduate students and helped and trained several researchers in genome analyses. He has also provided training workshops to attendees of annual meetings of a professional society.

Location: College of Public Health and Health Professions | Department of Clinical & Health Psychology

Lisa King has led one of the best Dialectical Therapy Program in the southeast for the past 7 years. Her program teaches lifesaving skills to severely mentally ill adults and adolescents. Her outcome data and patient satisfaction data document the significant difference Dr. King has made in their lives. Dr. King has also taught these skills to her mental health counselors and graduate students, as the lead instructor of the Advanced Therapy Course. Her exceptional management and organizational skills have facilitated over $4M dollars in collections in the clinic. Dr. King has taken on the tedious tasks of working with UF Health and State of Florida administrators to optimize Psychology’s Specialty Clinic’s participation within the changing Medicare and Medicaid programs.

Location: College of Medicine – Jacksonville | Neurology

Dr. Suparna Krishnaiengar has provided UF Health Jacksonville with multifaceted services throughout her years of employment. Dr. Krishnaiengar serves as a faculty in the department of Neurology with subspecialty training in Epilepsy. With clinical duties being her major assignment, Dr. Krishaniengar has been looking for ways to develop programs for epilepsy patients. She has been instrumental in developing a multidisciplinary specialty clinic for pregnant women with epilepsy. This clinic is the first-of-its-kind in North Florida and one of only a few nation-wide and provides services to an underrepresented population. Despite launching this clinic only a few months ago, the reception of patients has been beyond expectation due to the previously unmet need.

Location: College of Design, Construction, and Planning

As Interim Department Chair, Dan Manley went above and beyond his stated duties and responsibilities of running the Department of Landscape Architecture. With careful consideration and planning, the faculty worked to change the bachelor’s degree in landscape architecture from a 5-year to a 4-year program, to create a more advantageous and accessible program for students while maintaining the quality of education and training that the program is known for. Dan’s professional practice roots have been key to balancing out the student experience – as his real-world experience helps ground ideas and design parameters to build skills for future professional success of his students.

Location: UF Health | Hospital Medicine

Nila is a clinician that cares for many of the most complex patients with areas of specialization being perioperative evaluation, quality/patient safety, and co‐management with other services. Her clinical acumen combined with her leadership skills in the clinical area have led to numerous leadership positions, including Medical Director. Upon her arrival, there were 16 Hospitalist Faculty. In the ensuing years, Nila has grown the division to 50 Hospitalists. In November 2017, her administrative skills were recognized by the Department of Medicine, College of Medicine when she was appointed Division Chief for Hospital Medicine.

Location: Counseling & Wellness Center

Kristen’s kindness and compassion is shown when attending to the needs of all people she meets. She connects with students and parents seeking service for their student and makes them feel cared about and at ease. On top of that, Kristen takes time to share her talents and gifts outside UF through volunteering in the larger community. In the summer of 2021, Kristen completed Crisis Center Phone Counselor Training at the Alachua County Crisis Center. The overall extent which Kristen goes to each day to care for everyone she meets is very honorable and she is bound to make an incredible impact in the community along with helping people improve their lives in a positive manner.

Location: College of Public Health & Health Professions | Occupational Therapy

Since taking on the role of lead faculty advisor for the student-run Occupational Therapy Equal Access Clinic (OT-EAC), Dr. Galloway has facilitated student development of professional skills related to OT practice. She identified strengths and weaknesses related to the logistics of the student board and helped rework the board positions to be more equitable in responsibilities in order to create sustainability. She guided the students through the creation of protocols related to clinic operations and improved client care by increasing the standards of quality in order to address health disparity within the Gainesville community. From her extensive clinical experience, she developed new guidelines for documentation within this clinic to meet the students’ evolving knowledge developed within the OT doctoral curriculum. Since adopting Dr. Galloway’s changes, the OT-EAC has increased their ability to schedule appointments by 200% since they are now providing both telehealth and on-site services from one location. They have also increased their fundraising by 80%, which has resulted in improved ability to purchase and distribute needed adapted equipment to clients.

Location: UF Health Jacksonville

Aside from her role as a Histotechnologist at UF Health Jacksonville, Nicole has been working in clinical outreach for almost 2 years non-stop. Whether it be helping people, animals or picking up trash, nothing or no event is beneath her. With all she has done with community outreach, representing UF, and creating her own community events, she has definitely show she has a heart to serve. She has a good character and willingness to help others. She loves helping her community whether it be people, pets or just making Jacksonville a better place to live.

Location: College of Liberal Arts & Sciences | Center for African Studies

As the Outreach Director for the Center of African Studies, Dr. Leslie was a key factor in establishing honors African and African-American History classes at all local Alachua County high schools and making sure they not only survived, but thrived. It is rare that such a distinguished professor can go into K-12 classrooms at multiple schools and be recognized and respected by hundreds of kids in the community. With over 20 years doing this work, her mentorship, collaboration, and community partnership continues to make a difference for thousands of kids and educators.

Location: University Police Department

Officer Pratt is the epitome of crime prevention. Since joining the University Police Department in 1995,  she has gone above and beyond with her dedication to crime prevention not only on the University campus but in the surrounding community. Officer Pratt is an instructor of several reduction areas, including RAD, radKids, S.A.F.E, and a lead instructor of UFPD’s Community Police Academy. The numerous programs taught by Officer Pratt have impacted the lives of thousands of students and families in Gainesville. Besides teaching these programs on the college campus, Officer Pratt represents UPD well and teaches the same programs to another program close to her heart, the Special Olympics. She makes it a point to teach kids with disabilities that no obstacle is in their way of success.

Location: P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School

Carla-Ann puts into practice diversity and inclusion elements in all aspects of her work as a scholar, teacher, and colleague. As a classroom teacher, her middle grades classes are always forward thinking and include difficult conversations. She teaches her students how to approach these conversations with dignity, respect, and integrity. As a colleague, Carla-Ann has assisted in moving the P.K. Yonge faculty by serving as a leader of the Racial Equity Council, the Faculty Hiring of Color committee, and being an active representative on both Faculty Policy Council and the School Advisory Council. She is passionate about the work being done in this field and brings this enthusiasm to her students and colleagues.

Location: IFAS North Florida Research & Education Center Marianna

Mr. Gomillion knows and understands how far many of our international scholars, graduate students, post-doctoral associates and faculty are from our country and seeks to bridge that gap by generating opportunities for cultural exchanges. He has implemented the yearly International Luncheon, in which international scholars, students, staff and faculty can prepare dishes from their country and share with the NFREC community. Additionally, Mr. Gomillion has created English lectures, classes designed by him that cover both day-to-day conversation and agricultural terms. He has created a creative, trusting and diverse environment in which he also shares aspects of American culture and the scholars share cultural information about their country and traditions.

Location: UF IT | Center for Instructional Technology & Training

Since Laura joined CITT five years ago, she has made accessibility, equity, and inclusion a priority by developing resources, services, and initiatives that promote a more accessible and inclusive teaching and learning environment. Laura co-created a Teaching for Inclusivity and Accessibility Certificate of Completion series that had more than 200 registrants during this nomination period. In addition to this training series, Laura helped lead the development of Accessibility Basics and Accessibility Fundamentals, two self-paced trainings that have approximately 200 participants from UF and beyond. In September 2021, she also helped launch a new service that enables instructors to gain assistance in remediating accessibility issues in their digital content through accessibility consultations.

Location: Counseling & Wellness Center

Dr. Wang has been a resource for his colleagues when they have encountered challenging situations and he has helped with ethical decision making and finding culturally specific resources. A huge contribution that Dr. Wang provided in the area of Crisis Intervention is that he facilitated an outreach entitled: QPR (Question, Persuade and Refer) Suicide Prevention Training. This training he provided is above and beyond his job requirements and is a 1.5 hour interactive presentation incorporating the basic QPR core curriculum. The course covers myths regarding suicide, warning signs, and how to inquire about suicides. The course also includes an opportunity for questions and discussion. This training is available to faculty, staff, students, and organizations across the University of Florida campus, and includes considerations of Diversity and Inclusion that Dr. Wang integrated throughout.