**update: Nicola went on to win the individual Distinguished Award at the whole-University level.**
Faculties and all individual members of staff are invited annually to nominate colleagues for a Professional Support Services, Library and Cultural Institutions’ Distinguished Achievement Award.
The 2017 Winner is Nicola Begley, FBMH (Pictured below being presented the award by Professor Ian Greer. Congratulations!
Here is an excerpt from Professor Andrew Loudon’s interview on his winning nominee.
What made you nominate Nicola?
Nicola is a natural born leader. She works in a large busy environment with many conflicting pressures on her time, and carries considerable responsibility, in terms of financial and legal and regulatory. The presence of an experienced efficient support-staff leader is a necessary common feature in all large successful laboratories world-wide. Put simply, laboratories such as ours cannot operate without such support. Post-graduate and post-doctoral staff are of necessity short-term employees, so experienced support staff are the essential long-term glue that holds the team together.
Why do you think it is appropriate to have these awards?
Yes, it is very important. The support staff in the faculty are often the un-sung heroes of our science, and are critical to our operation across the board. We are very fortunate to have such a well-run operation at Manchester, from the core facilities to individual laboratories.
Here are a few words from Nicola.
Could you provide a very brief history of your career here at Manchester ?
I started working at the University in 2011 as a Research Technician for Dr. Julie Gibbs in Prof. Andrew Loudon’s lab. I have remained in the Loudon lab where my role has developed to not only provide technical support but to also provide transgenic research programme management for multiple labs across the FBMH.
What does the achievement award mean to you?
I feel extremely grateful to have received the award. I am very lucky to work with such supportive PI’s and colleagues and the nomination alone reinforced this support. Winning the award reiterated how I feel day to day which is greatly appreciated for the work that I do.
What would you say is your greatest achievement since starting at the University & what are your plans for the future?
My greatest achievement was in being a middle author on an article in Nature medicine. This represented the culmination of 4 years work on a research programme into circadian control of inflammation which I was heavily involved in and supported the over research effort. To me this shows the importance of my work and role in research. In the future I hope to develop in my career, particularly in a research management role.
Runners up include: Neil O’Hara (research technician) and Anthony Steel (technical manager) FBMH. Well done! Read Neil’s interview here and Anthony’s here.
The next coffee, tea & networking event will be held in the Common Room of the Arthur Lewis Building from 10.30am to 11.30am on Wednesday, May 17th, 2017. The session will not only provide the opportunity for networking with technical colleagues from across the University, but also the first opportunity to sign-up for workplace tours in the following quarter and hear about future tour ideas, as well as other non-TEaM events.
Professor Richard Grencis FRSB,
At the end of January we hosted a coffee and networking event in the foyer of the Schuster building. As well as tea, coffee and delicious cakes (what diet?), TEaM members had the opportunity to sign up for a professional registration workshop with the Science Council and a selection of tours of: the Animal Unit, the Manchester Museum and the Whitworth Art Gallery. As a thank-you for coming to the event, those who signed up had the first opportunity to book a place: any places left after that were advertised to the whole TEaM email list. Both the tours and the event proved really popular (80 people came to the event, and places on the workshop and tours went very quickly). We’re planning on holding the networking events every 3 months, and have new tours to offer at these, as well as a newsletter.
Thanks so much to everyone who came and we hope to have much more to offer you over the coming weeks and months, watch out for updates!
On Monday 20th February the Science Council was on campus to give a workshop to 17 technical staff about professional registration – how to apply, and what level (R. Sci. Tech, R. Sci or C. Sci) to apply for.
m the day was good; staff said that it was very useful and definitely helped with their applications. TEaM will definitely be gauging interest for another one at the next coffee & networking event.