‘Above and beyond the call of duty’: Dean Chun honors Y-Work Award winners
On April 24, Dean Marvin Chun hosted a reception to honor the 10 winners of the 2019 Y-Work Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Student Employees.
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“Thank you all for joining us today to celebrate 10 fantastic Yale College students and their many contributions made through their on-campus jobs.”: Dean Marvin Chun delivers welcoming remarks.
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Chun with winners Maria Gargiulo, Pierson ’19 and Katherine Brumberg, Trumbull ’19. Brumberg and Gargiulo both served as undergraduate learning assistants in the Statistics & Data Science (S&DS) department. Their supervisor noted that their “teamwork and collaboration in support of S&DS clearly represents a positive impact on our small (but growing) community.”
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Joe Doran, Trumbull ’20. Doran supports various operations in Trumbull College as an office aide, special events aide, and media tech. His supervisors say that “he is dependable, a leader, highly motivated, and an absolute pleasure to be around – he needs no direction; he just looks around and gets done what needs to be done.”
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Paige Villarreal, Jonathan Edwards ’19. As a student manager, Villarreal plays a key role in keeping things running smoothly and professionally in the Berkeley Dining Hall. Her supervisor is “confident Paige will go on to be a great leader and become a mentor of others as she embarks on the next phase of her professional path.”
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Lily Mirfakhraie, Davenport ’19. Mirfakhraie, an assistant in the King Lab, is responsible for clerical and scientific work, including a new CRISPR project. She “has become so independent that I forget she is only an undergraduate,” says her supervisor in the lab.
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TJ Noel-Sullivan, Saybrook ’20. In his role managing media equipment checkout as a media tech for Information Technology Services, Noel-Sullivan’s extensive equipment and film-making knowledge has set him apart. His “work during the center’s management change completely revitalized the equipment booth and his consultancy in regards to new equipment will have positive ripple effects far into the future,” says his supervisor.
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Donovan Sabog, Berkeley ’19. As a recruitment coordinator for the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, Sabog has been involved in numerous admissions office projects involving outreach to prospective students and communication and programming for newly admitted students. His supervisor calls him “the gold standard for what it means to be a student employee.”
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Sarah Siegel, Trumbull ’19. Siegel is involved in all aspects of event planning, marketing, and community building for the Women in Government Fellowship Program. “Sarah has built a movement across campus that is normalizing the idea that women ought to enter politics,” says her supervisor. “Her work is why the discussion of women’s political participation has woven into the fabric of student life at Yale.”
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Odette Wang, Branford ’20. Wang leads highlights tours of the Yale University Art Gallery’s collection and is responsible for helping conceptualize and lead regular gallery programs for families from New Haven and surrounding communities. “Odette is one of the most creative, committed, and reliable students I have worked with in my twenty years in museum education,” says her supervisor.
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Max Yuhas, Timothy Dwight ’20. As head intramural secretary and intramural webmaster for the Athletics department, Yuhas is responsible for scoring tabulation, determining playoffs, scheduling games, and acting as the liaison between Athletics, student secretaries, and residential college leadership. He is truly one of the most important student workers on campus,” says his supervisor. “His work directly impacts approximately 2,000 intramural participants.”
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A reception with winners and their supervisors followed the awards ceremony. Left to right: Chun; Mirfakhraie; her supervisor, Elisa Rodriguez, a research assistant in Cell Biology; Villarreal.
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Wang and her supervisor, Senior Associate Curator of Public Education Jessica Sack (left).
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Left to right: Supervisors S&DS Professor Jay Emerson and Winston Lin, lecturer and research scholar in S&DS; Gargiulo; Brumberg; S&DS Acting Chair Dan Spielman.
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Left to right: Supervisor Stephanie Waite, student services officer in the Office of Career Strategy (OCS); Julia Borque, senior associate director at OCS, and Siegel.
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Yuhas and supervisor Tom Migdalski, assistant athletic director for club sports, outdoor education, & intramurals.
The winners, who have worked in a range of Yale departments, scientific laboratories, museums, and resource centers, were nominated by their department supervisors and chosen by a committee composed of representatives from several Yale College administrative offices and resource centers.
“Out of the many award nominations we received,” said Chun during his welcoming remarks, “the students here this afternoon clearly stood out for their dedication and professionalism in the workplace as well as their initiative and innovation to go above and beyond the call of duty.”
