Information Technology Awards
The University of Alberta is committed to providing an excellent information technology (IT) environment that facilitates the university's research, teaching and administration agendas, to the benefit of faculty, staff and students. In recognition of the critical roles that IT professionals play in making this a reality, the Office of the Associate Vice-President & Chief Information Officer established the Information Technology Awards in 2010. These annual awards are intended to recognize non-academic individuals or teams for their outstanding contributions to advancing the university's IT agenda.
Eligibility
Employees being nominated must have been an employee of the University of Alberta as of December 31, 2022.
Students being nominated must have been enrolled at the University of Alberta sometime in 2023.
Awards
Each award category presents the winner(s) with a plaque recognizing the accomplishments of the winner(s) and a gift, regardless of the number of recipients. The award winners are announced and presented at an awards ceremony in June.
- IT Distinguished Career Award
- IT Ambassador Award
- IT Innovation Award
- IT Client Service Award
- IT Unsung Hero Award
Categories and Criteria
IT Distinguished Career Award
The IT Distinguished Career Award recognizes one support staff for their outstanding contributions to advancing the U of A's IT agenda. The successful nominee will be a current or recently retired employee with an outstanding IT career of at least 15 years at the U of A, and they will have demonstrated leadership that had a major impact on a unit or across the university.
The AVP & CIO grants one award annually. Relevant characteristics of the nominee would include:
- providing an outstanding IT infrastructure;
- showing innovation or leadership in the adoption of technology;
- fostering a supportive and collegial team environment;
- demonstrating a strong track record of mentoring;
- building relationships both within and outside of the unit or University;
- leading by example in competence, commitment and positive energy.
IT Ambassador Award
The IT Ambassador Award recognizes one support staff for outstanding technology leadership and contributions. The successful nominee will have demonstrated exceptional leadership to their department, faculty or unit and made notable IT contributions to the university community.
The AVP & CIO grants one award annually. Relevant characteristics of the nominee would include:
- achieving goals that require significant professional development and acquisition of new skills;
- providing a sense of purpose, vision and mission while planning and implementing strategies in the best interest of the U of A;
- offering expertise that adds value to projects and operations;
- fostering a supportive and collegial team environment;
- demonstrating extraordinary initiative in the adoption of technology;
- building relationships both within and outside of the unit or university.
IT Innovation Award
The IT Innovation Award recognizes one support staff and one team for their innovative use of hardware and/or software technology to successfully deploy a major IT project with significant impact to research, teaching, administration and/or the university experience. The successful nominees will have made a significant impact to a department, faculty, unit, or to the university.
The AVP & CIO grants two awards annually: one to an individual, and one to a team. Some examples of possible individual or team efforts include:
- taking an innovative approach to solving IT issues that benefit the university community and the U of A (e.g., pedagogical advantages, efficiencies gained, research opportunities, and use of advanced technical concepts, tools and/or best practices);
- developing and/or deploying hardware or software that has an impact on research, teaching or administration;
- taking a proactive and innovative approach to finding a sustainable solution to business needs;
- making significant cross-administrative organizational efforts.
IT Client Service Award
The IT Client Service Award recognizes one support staff member and one team for providing a high quality of service to a faculty, unit, or department.
The AVP & CIO grants two awards annually: one to an individual, and one to a team. The successful nominees will have demonstrated some or all of the following characteristics:
- improving value and efficiency of services;
- providing a high quality of service to customers and improving the customer experience;
- anticipating client needs and potential problems;
- finding an innovative and cost-effective method to performing day-to-day operations;
- acting as a role model to other units.
IT Unsung Hero Award
The IT Unsung Hero Award recognizes a support staff member who has made a significant and largely unrecognized contribution to IT at the U of A. The successful nominee will have made an important, often uncelebrated improvement to the quality of the IT environment offered by a department, faculty or unit, or to the university overall.
The AVP & CIO grants one award annually. Some examples of possible contributions by a nominee include:
- going well above and beyond the requirements of a job without fanfare;
- maintaining commitment to IT innovation;
- demonstrating reliability, perseverance, focus and exemplary IT service within a unit;
- providing mentorship by sharing knowledge and job-related skills;
- taking initiative to identify tasks for completion and find solutions to problems.
Awards Committee
The awards will be determined by a committee consisting of the following members:
- Associate Vice-President & Chief Information Officer - Chair;
- representatives from IST (2);
- representatives from the University of Alberta community (2).
Previous Award Winners
- 2023: Raymond Richmond (IST) - Watch the event
- 2022: Francois Brochu (Engineering) - Watch the event
- 2021: Janet Arndt (IST) - Watch the event
- 2020: Gordie Mah (IST) - Watch the event
- 2018: Sandra Shores (Learning Services)
- 2017: Dr. Masao Fujinaga (IST)
- 2016: Rod Johnson (IST)
- 2015: Robin Sawh (IST)
- 2014: Kevin Watts (IST)
- 2013: Shelagh Hohm (AIS)
- 2012: Chuck Humphrey (Libraries)
- 2011: Paul Sorenson (Computing Science)
- 2010: Brian Acheson and Kevin Moodie (AICT)
- 2023: Sherri Honeychurch (IT Service Excellence) and Jason Ross (IST) - Watch the event
- 2022: Ronnie Thengumpally (IST) - Watch the event
- 2021: Colleen Rizzoli (Faculty of Education) - Watch the event
- 2020: David Shu (VFO) - Watch the event
- 2018: Dr. Martine Pellerin (Faculté Saint-Jean)
- 2017: Simon Collier from IST
- 2016: Dr. Sandra Davidson from the Faculty of Nursing
- 2015: Robert Brennan from the Augustana Campus.
- 2014: Lester Lim from the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine.
- 2013: Jeff Rawlings from the Faculty of Arts.
- 2012: Eleni Stroulia from the Department of Computing Science.
- 2011: Jennifer Branch-Mueller from the Faculty of Education and Josh Ryder from the Augustana Campus.
- 2010: Wendy Caplan from the Faculty of Nursing and Brett Finch from the Faculty of Agriculture, Life and Environmental Sciences (ALES).
- 2023: Jamie Stewart and the Learning Design Studio (Caregiver-Centred Care Education) - Watch the event
- 2022: Dr. Steven Katz (FoMD) and Yue Xing (Facilities and Operations) - Watch the event
- 2021: Individual - Corey Chevraux (Faculty of Kinesiology, Sport, and Recreation) - Watch the event
- 2021: Team - Engineering Student Hire Automation Project Team - Watch the event
- 2020: Individual - Dr. David Chorney (Faculty Education) - Watch the event
- 2020: Individual - Janet Arndt (IST) - Watch the event
- 2020: Team - UASI Project Team (IST, Registrar’s Office, Faculty of Arts, Augustana) - Watch the event
- 2020: Team - eClass Team (IST) - Watch the event
- 2018: Individual - Jeffery Antoniuk (Libraries)
- 2018: Individual - Mehran Panahi Akhavan (Faculty of Engineering)
- 2018: Team - IST Learning Management Cloud Team & eClass Team (IST)
- 2017: Individual - Lise Niyuhire (Campus Saint-Jean)
- 2017: Team - Academic Advisement Team
Robin Cowan, Faculty of Arts; Joyce McEachern, Augustana; Carine Tuekam Kunche, Campus Saint-Jean; Barbara Peebles, IST; Robin Wilson, IST - 2016: DMP Assistant team
Libraries: Weiwei Shi, Chuck Humphrey, Umar Qasim, Neil MacGregor, Tai-Chun Lee, James Dorion;
IST: Tyler Antonio, James Woodward. - 2015: Peter Davis from the Faculty of Nursing
- 2023: Individual - Christianne Ussher (Teaching and Learning Services) and Janet Lam (Faculty of Nursing) - Watch the event
- 2023: Team - Endpoint Evergreen Project Team (IST)
- 2022: Individual - Nash Goonewardena (ALES) and Neil White (IST) - Watch the event
- 2022: Team - Arts Resource Centre - Watch the event
- 2021: Individual - Davor Karacic (Faculty of Engineering) - Watch the event
- 2021: Team - Digital Learning Environment (IST) - Watch the event
- 2020: Individual - Aaron Langen (Dean of Students - Administration) - Watch the event
- 2020: Team - eClass Team (IST) - Watch the event
- 2018: William Campbell (IST)
- 2017: Individual - Dave Laurie (IST)
- 2017: Team - Client Support 1 (IST)
Dustin Littlewood, Danny Whittaker, Christianne Ussher, Roman Paszewski, Ryan Williams, Maxim Wawruck, Raihan Jamil, Anders Simons, Tom Bowman, Richard Lalonde, Jeremy Bauche - 2016: Tim Young from the Faculty of Law
- 2015: The Competency-Based Assessment (CBAS) Team from the Department of Family Medicine in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry. Members of CBAS include: Mirella Chiodo, Dr. Mike Donoff, Dr. Paul Humphries, Dr. Fred Janke, Kay Kovithavongs, John Chmelicek, Dr. Darren Nichols, Dr. Shelley Ross, Dr. Shirley Schipper
- 2023: Brandon Boyko (Shared Services) - Watch the event
- 2022: Clare Peters (Arts) and Jason Clements (IST) - Watch the event
- 2021: Igor Jakab (Faculty of Science) - Watch the event
- 2020: Lorraine McCrimmon (IST) - Watch Lorraine's video
- 2020: Igor Sinelnikov (Faculty of Science) - Watch the event
- 2018: Ronnie Thengumpally (IST)
- 2017: Giovanni Trapasso (IST)
- 2016: John Bartoszewski (IST)
- 2015: Goetz Dapp from the Canadian Centre for Welding and Joining and Darcy Frank from Campus Saint Jean
- 2014: Lorne Leclair from the Department of Biological Sciences and Grant Wang from the Faculty of Arts
- 2013: Yan Chen from AIS and Jon Martin from the Department of Computing Science
- 2012: Lou Omerzu from the Department of Psychology
- 2011: Vlad Bado from the Faculty of Education and Nuno Luzio from the School of Native Studies
- 2010: Jenny Altarejos from the Center for Health Evidence, Lester Lim from the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine, and Alex Schwarzer from the Arts Resource Centre in the Faculty of Arts
Watch the IT Awards 2023
