Stanford Engineering announces the winners of its annual staff awards
The School of Engineering is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2022 School of Engineering staff service awards. Each of these individuals was nominated by faculty and staff from throughout the school for their extraordinary commitment and dedication during another challenging year.
Max Levine, Citizenship Award
Max’s colleagues say he is “truly an exemplary citizen — not just within our lab but our department as well. He is always willing to lend a hand to anyone in need of help and consistently goes out of his way to do the right thing.” Whether he’s assisting others with research, helping facilities staff with inventory or maintenance issues, “cleaning up stuff that is not his own, or going to other labs to ask for reagents we ran out of,” Max, a life science research professional in the chemical engineering department, is always there with a friendly smile willing to lend a hand to anyone in need of assistance.
Dennis Bithoulkas, Innovation Award
The Innovation Award recognizes contributions in support of improvements in customer service, efficiency, or operational effectiveness. Dennis, a health and safety specialist in the school, is certainly deserving! Instrumental in retiring the school’s old biowaste service provider and bringing in a new contractor that’s more reliable and less expensive, he also helped the school save money by creating a system to safely reduce the number of lab coats we rent, while improving the laundry service. Nominators also cited Dennis’s proactive approach to safety, and his close work with researchers, staff, and students to prevent potential issues and further our culture of safety.
Steve Stanghellini, Client Service Award
More than one nominator named Steve as “easily the best financial administrator I have worked with” — and, they added, he does so with extraordinary good cheer and friendliness. As a manager of research administration, Steve is so deserving of this award because he goes above and beyond the standard to make sure the faculty working with him are successful. There have been “countless times when I needed last-minute help with my budget proposal,” said one person, “and Steve would always come through promptly with exactly what I needed.” Simply put, “he makes the challenging task of getting research funding so much easier!”
Lourdes Andrade, Diversity & Inclusion Award
Over many years at Stanford, Lourdes has worked tirelessly on behalf of the university’s efforts to realize its promise for and to our students. In SoE, she has created, revamped, and enhanced programs that build community and support engineers at all stages. More than that, through her work with students, faculty, and staff alike, she has galvanized the entire School of Engineering to be the community we aspire to be: one that is dedicated to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Her calm and persistent leadership has pushed us all forward. Colleagues in the Office of Student Affairs say, “Lourdes is the compass for our office.”
Nhu Do, Leadership Award
In a year filled with pandemic-related HR challenges, Nhu has been “critical to helping hold SoE together,” said a nominator. SoE’s HR director was on maternity leave for a portion of the year, while at the same time many HR associates and business partners left for other positions. Nhu, an associate director of human resources, not only kept HR operations going without most of the staff, she found creative solutions to bridge some of these gaps. She also played an essential role in hiring new HR business partners and associates and ramping them up. Said a nominator: “I’m not sure where we would have been without her leadership.”
Mary K. McMahon, Shah Award
The Shah Award, the school’s highest staff honor, is given each year to a staff member who exhibits outstanding competence, dedication, and accomplishment. As the director of finance and operations in the electrical engineering department, Mary K. is known both department- and school-wide for her strong leadership and deft management skills, and for her mentorship of colleagues within the department and beyond. She navigated the department through all the complexities of the pandemic, building upon an already well-earned reputation as a calm, confident, and trustworthy leader — an individual of outstanding character — who’s able to make good decisions quickly and with confidence. Mary K., said one nominator, “never forgot that it’s not enough to just sail the ship. She always truly cares about health and well-being of everyone in EE.” Another: “More than all the specifics, Mary K.’s heart is just in the right place — she is always there to help.”
