Announcing the 2022 Department of Psychology Staff Award Recipients

Madison Carlson, Research Technician Associate in the Jonides Lab, received the Outstanding Research Staff Member Award. This award is designed to honor a research staff member who is recognized for exceptional service in advancing the research mission of the Psychology Department.

Here’s a quote from one of the nominations we received for Madison: “Madison has been with my lab for just short of 2 years now, and she is hands-down the best lab manager I have ever had, and I have been fortunate to have many excellent managers. She is functioning like a young graduate student in every possible way. For example, she is currently going to be the lead author on a project concerned with lingering cognitive symptoms of long-COVID. Beyond that, she is a co-author on at least 4 other papers that are in various stages of preparation on COVID-related issues. And she is deeply involved in every other project in the lab. She has learned techniques of experimentation from scratch, she has become quite proficient in R for statistical analysis, she is learning to apply EMG as a measurement tool, she is interfacing with a collaborating lab at Irvine to implement experiments using TMS, and on and on. Let me add that she is doing all of this while also taking science courses at EMU in preparation for applying to medical schools next year. And she keeps an outside job to make enough money to support her tuition. Madison is both my right-hand and left-hand person, and I can’t imagine a person more deserving of this award.”

Congratulations, Madison!

Missy Denny, East Hall Business Office Manager, received the Star Staff Award for Exemplary Service. This award is presented by the Management Group in recognition of exemplary service including outstanding leadership, innovation, and collaboration.

Here’s a quote from a faculty member: “Missy stepped in to help me with preparation of funding proposals. She was not only fantastic at helping with the numerous ins and outs of preparing those proposals, she went above and beyond by working with multiple offices and tracking down information and contact numbers when problems arose. She regularly checked in with me to ensure that details were addressed correctly, even if I was out of touch for some time. I really appreciated her help and felt like she was looking out for me.”

Another colleague stated, “Since Missy started in the Business Office a little over a year ago, she has quickly learned about each faculty member’s research support needs in Psychology, which is no small undertaking. She has made a concerted effort to collaborate with the Chair’s Office and SAA to improve the graduate student funding process and help implement new policies and procedures. She provides supportive leadership to her team and has helped transition several new staff members. She is a calm presence under any situation, despite the numerous grant deadlines and urgent, complex matters that arise. She is knowledgeable,  thoughtful, respectful, and a joy to work with.”

Congratulations, Missy!

Megan Wolgast, Graduate Program Coordinator in the Student Academic Affairs office, received the Chris Peterson Staff Excellence Award. This award is intended to honor a staff member for outstanding service to the department and its members by living Chris’s motto “Other people matter. Period.”

One of the nomination letters stated, “Having worked at the department for many years, I have always found Megan to be respectful, accommodating, kind, and thoughtful in her approach to the multitude of tasks she must handle. So much of what happens in her position is time sensitive, yet she always seems to make or find the time for individual requests or needs. It has been a true pleasure getting to know her and work with her. For her it is not just about doing her job; recognizing the specific circumstances and challenges of competing needs, while supporting the people she works with, clearly matters to her.”

Another individual was quoted as saying, “Megan is truly excellent at what she does. She really cares about everyone she works with and that shows in the time she dedicates to all aspects of her job. I have been especially impressed with her work with coordinating GSIships. That is a HARD job with a ton of moving pieces and she manages to work it all out each and every semester, and to stay cool-headed while doing it.”

Congratulations, Megan!