Blizard colleagues' success at FMD Staff Awards 2024
Congratulations to Dr Marie Spreckley, Carlos De Oliveira, Khalid Rouas and Professor Chloe Orkin, who all received awards at this year’s FMD Staff Awards
VP Health Professor Sir Mark Caulfield presenting the FMD Staff Awards
The Award Ceremony took place yesterday evening The Conservatory at the Barbican Centre in London. In attendance were each of the award winners, along with key Blizard colleagues including Interim Institute Manager Rachael Parker, Institute Director for Education Jürgen Groet, and Institute Education Manager Nawaz Ahmed.
Details of the awards and winners:
Research Professional of the Year Award
This award recognises the exceptional contribution made by a member of the Faculty’s Professional or Technical Services.
Winners
Dr Marie Spreckley, Director of Business Operations and Partnerships, Genes and Health
Dr Marie Spreckley has been instrumental in fostering collaborative engagement within our Faculty, across faculties, with external stakeholders and consistently championed inclusivity within our research environment. She has worked tirelessly to ensure that all team members, regardless of their background or status, feel valued and included in our research endeavours. As a leader, Marie leads by example, providing mentorship and support to her team members.
Carlos De Oliveira, Research Manager
Carlos is the Institute Research Manager for the Blizard Institute within the FMD Research Delivery Team. Carlos has not only been fulfilling his role at Blizard but has been going above and beyond during the past year by providing strategic and operational support to researchers at the Institute of Dentistry. Carlos has truly demonstrated Queen Mary Values in action by working collaboratively and building strong partnerships across Queen Mary and beyond, constantly aiming for excellence, recognising strengths, all the while respecting people's different skills and knowledge.
Outstanding Contribution to Professional and Technical Services Award
This award seeks to recognise individuals within professional and technical services who made an outstanding contribution or provide excellent day-to-day support to Faculty’s activity in areas of estate or learning resources.
Winner
Khalid Rouas, Institute Technician
Institute Since joining the laboratory management team in June, Khalid has been integral to the excellent running of the washroom. Khalid has been the driving force behind Laboratory Management's engagement with ProjectSEARCH, a charity helping young people with autism. Khalid has also been able to mentor two interns, and his extra work on this will contribute to the institute being considered a Disability Confident employer.
Khalid was joint winner in this category, alongside Steven Coppen from the William Harvey Research Institute.
Inspirational Leadership Award
This award recognises an individual who has demonstrated exceptional leadership across any aspect of the work of the Faculty.
Winner
Professor Chloe Orkin, Professor of Infection and Inequities at the Centre for Immunobiology
Professor Chloe Orkin is an internationally recognised leader in infectious diseases and a clinical advisor to the WHO. She has led research and testing campaigns which have changed practice and has worked tirelessly on ways of improving inclusion in clinical trials. She has challenged the status quo on countless occasions, as president of the Medical Women’s Federation, or as FMD EDI Lead. In this latter capacity, she has actively worked to implement real changes. The recent AdvanceHE panel described Chloe's EDI leadership over the past five years as ‘transformative’ and this led to a Gold ATHENA Swan Award, making FMD as one of just seven faculties in the UK to hold this recognition.
Chloe was also commended for the EDI Champion Award. This award recognises an individual or team’s effort to embed EDI into their work.
Congratulations to all of the winners and those commended at this year's Awards.