Celebrate Our Staff – October 2023
Join us as we celebrate our colleagues’ achievements across the University from the past few weeks.
Featured this month:
- Lifetime Achievement award for Head of Cleaning Services
- Miro Griffiths in Disability Power 100
- Conferences and Events team recognised for commitment to diversity and inclusion
- New translation takes a unique look at French life
- European award for neuro-oncology expert
- Crime scientist wins prestigious prize
- Bragg Building named best in Leeds
Lifetime Achievement award for Head of Cleaning Services
Jill Roberts, the Head of Cleaning Services, has been awarded a lifetime achievement award by the British Institute of Cleaning Sciences (BICSc).
Jill picked up the Eric Hill award at the organisation’s awards ceremony at the end of September.
It signifies Jill’s dedication to the Cleaning Services team during her time as head of the service, which included the COVID-19 pandemic.
Jill said: “Receiving the Eric Hill award was the highlight of my career!
“I believe that investing in teams through education and training leads to success and professionalism and my association with BICSc over the last 30 years has been the mainstay of delivering the best training and development opportunities to cleaning teams. I felt a real sense of achievement being recognised by BICSc for my commitment over the years.
“And now we have success in the University cleaning team with an accredited centre and lead assessor and Team Leaders successfully completing the BICSc supervisor certificate – they are shining stars and I’m very proud of their achievements.”
Earlier this year, the University became a BICSc-accredited training centre, which shows its commitment to professional standards and means that it can standardise and deliver training to BICSc’s high levels.
The team has now held an event celebrating the first cohort of team leaders to complete the BICSc supervisor certificate, as well as marking Jill’s achievement.
Miro Griffiths in Disability Power 100
Dr Miro Griffiths MBE has been named as a finalist for the Shaw Trust’s Disability Power 100 for 2023.
Miro, from the School of Sociology and Social Policy, is joined on the Disability Power 100 list by advocates, campaigners and figures from public life, science and technology, and community organisations.
The Shaw Trust is an organisation which focuses on reducing the disability employment gap, believing that work can help challenge inequality and break down barriers to enable social mobility.
Miro said: “I am surprised at my inclusion in the Disability Power 2023, given the dedication and extensive contributions of disabled people – across the UK – who work endlessly to promote accessibility, inclusivity, and social justice. Awards, such as the Disability Power 2023, are an opportunity to recognise disabled people’s pursuit for accessible and inclusive societies.
“Irrespective of when we appear on this list, or if we decline to be named, it is our voice – as disabled people – that matters.”
An established and influential scholar in Disability Studies, Miro is the Co-Director of the Centre for Disability Studies – an internationally renowned research centre dedicated to understanding how political, economic, social, and cultural contexts affect disabled people’s life chances.
His pioneering research has explored young disabled people’s participation in campaigning, advocacy, and disability politics across Europe.
Miro’s engagement with disability campaigning started when he was 14. Since then, he has gone on to be the Chair of the WhizzKidz Youth Board, worked with Sony to create a computer game promoting disability equality, and was part of the UK delegation at the Signing Ceremony for the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2007.
Conferences and Events team recognised for commitment to diversity and inclusion
Jacob Seddon, Karina Kendrick, Sam Glenister-Batey and Chelsea Rolfe after winning the award
The Conferences and Events team has been recognised with a leading industry award for its outstanding contribution to promoting diversity, equity and inclusion.
The team received the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Award at the miaList 2023 awards, organised by the Meetings Industry Association.
It marks the culmination of work done by the team to champion improved access initiatives across the events sector.
Sam Glenister-Batey, Head of Conferences and Events at the University, said: “I am so proud that the team’s efforts in promoting accessibility and inclusion at conferences and events have been recognised.
“We consider ourselves passionate rather than experts in this area and thus remain dedicated to further developing our DEI practices to help make Leeds one of the most accessible, diverse and inclusive event locations.”
The team’s work includes its longstanding partnership with Communication Matters, an organisation which supports those who have complex communication needs and who use Augmentative Alternative Communication (AAC).
2023 was the 12th year that the charity had hosted its annual conference and awards night at the University.
Also on the night, Conferences and Events Assistant Jacob Seddon was recognised in the Star of the Future category, which recognises new talent in the business and meeting sector.
New translation takes a unique look at French life
Dr Terry Bradford has brought out a new translation of a unique French book.
Terry, from the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies, translated Clémentine Mélois’ ‘Sinon j’oublie’, which originally came out in 2017, and republished it under the English title of ‘Otherwise I Forget’.
In the book, Mélois takes 100 shopping lists she has found and uses each of them as a starting point with which to create characters from several walks of life in modern France.
A universal but ultimately throwaway form of writing, Mélois is able to create insights into those people’s lives from little more than scraps of paper.
‘Otherwise I Forget’ marks the first time her work has been translated into English and Terry hopes that this will now mean a larger number of people in the Anglosphere will be able to read Mélois’ writing.
Terry said: “Rarely, if ever, do the characters in the book come across as stereotypical – which, I imagine, is the trap in the design of this project. It’s thanks to particular details, such as the shopping lists themselves, that the characters come to life.
“That, for me, was one of the attractions of translating this book: the challenge of communicating at once the uniqueness and cultural specificity of each character for other cultures – including our own anglophone one – whilst allowing our common humanity to shine through.”
The book is available to pre-order now from Liverpool University Press.
European award for neuro-oncology expert
Dr Florien Boele has been recognised with a Europe-wide neuro-oncology award.
Florien, from the Leeds Institute of Medical Research, received the European Association of Neuro-Oncology (EANO) Nurse & Allied Health Professional Award for her outstanding contribution to the field.
She was nominated for the award by fellow members of the Association, which has more than 700 members from over 70 countries.
Neuro-oncology is the study and treatment of tumours in the brain and the central nervous system.
An Associate Professor of Medical Psychology, Florien leads research focusing on health-related quality of life and access to support for oncology patients and their carers.
One of her main research interests is the wellbeing of family carers, as well as the relationships between patients and those who care for them.
Florien said: “Receiving this award is a great boost and I feel very honoured and grateful to EANO. Research is a team effort and I am very fortunate to have been able to collaborate with a great group of local, national, and international colleagues over the years.”
EANO represents all the medical and scientific disciplines which are involved in prevention, diagnosis, and treatment related to neuro-oncology. Florien received the prize at their annual meeting in Rotterdam earlier this year.
Crime scientist wins prestigious prize
Professor Graham Farrell has been awarded the most prestigious award in the field of crime science and environmental criminology.
Graham was presented with the Ronald V Clarke Award for Fundamental Contributions to Environmental Criminology and Crime Analysis at the 2023 International Symposium on Environmental Criminology and Crime Analysis in Stockholm.
The conference aims to advance knowledge in environmental criminology and crime analysis in both research and practice, bringing together national and international experts.
It was through voting by these senior scholars in the field that Graham was chosen for the award.
Graham said: “I am absolutely delighted to receive this award. It is the highest honour in my field of study. To receive this recognition, on the basis of nomination and voting by an international panel of scholars, means a great deal.”
Crime science – particularly situational crime prevention such as the designing-out of crime – is Graham’s main area of research. In recent years, he has focused on the international drop in crime, examining the potential explanations for it, including pioneering work into the role of security improvements.
Situational crime prevention is also the main field of work of Ronald V Clarke – after whom the prize is named – who has been active in the field since the 1960s.
Bragg Building named best in Leeds
Jon Roylance (from architects ADP), Joe Morgan (from ADP), David Oldroyd and Jerry Lee at the ceremony
The Estates team are celebrating after the Sir William Henry Bragg Building won a Leeds Architecture Award.
Home to the University’s Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, the building won in the category for buildings that cost over £10 million.
A team from the University and the building’s designers, ADP Architects, collected the prize at a ceremony at the Howard Assembly Room on 1 November.
David Oldroyd, the University’s Interim Director of Development who was at the awards, said:
“The Bragg Building was designed and built with the University’s core strategic aims in mind and the challenge was to change the way people worked. We needed to encourage research collaboration and provide a welcoming, accessible and modern gateway into campus.
“It has proved very popular with students and it is wonderful to see the beautiful café space in particular being so well used by students and staff.”
The prize compliments the RIBA Yorkshire Region Award of 2023 which the building won in the summer.
Named after Sir William Henry Bragg, whose pioneering research at the University in the early 1900s won a Nobel prize and unlocked some of the biggest discoveries in modern science, the building is a high-tech complex with teaching rooms and laboratories specially designed to minimise vibrations from passing traffic.
Read more about the Bragg Building and its award.
Get in touch!
We know there are lots of great things happening to support the work of the University – and we want to hear about them!
Please follow the staff Twitter account to see the latest updates and copy in our @UniLeedsStaff handle when posting success stories, so we can share them with colleagues.
You can also fill out our Celebrate Our Staff nomination form if you or one of your colleagues would like to appear in this monthly feature. This is open to all staff – professional and academic.
Posted in: University news