Every year, we take the time to recognize outstanding staff for their dedication and many contributions to our department. Criteria for selecting outstanding staff included superior service, resourcefulness, innovation, creativity, excellence, integrity, and a commitment to creating and sustaining a climate of equity, justice, and anti-racism. Congratulations to all nominees!
DGH Outstanding Staff Award Recipient and SPH Anderson-O'Connell Award for Outstanding Staff Service
Lisa Nonzee
Sr. HR Manager
Lisa has worked diligently and with exceptional care to meet the evolving HR needs of our organization. Guided by a deep respect for the people behind the processes, she brings a thoughtful, human-centered approach to her work—ensuring that policies and systems not only function efficiently but also support the well-being of faculty, staff, and students. Through her strategic insight and thorough analysis, she has significantly enhanced processes and workflows—improvements that will leave a lasting mark not only on DGH. Most notably, she developed a comprehensive new workflow and form for faculty reduced responsibility requests, which is expected to substantially ease the administrative burden for all stakeholders and has already received praise from units across UW. Additionally, Lisa led the creation and implementation of processes for new position exception approvals, compensation exceptions, and robust tracking systems to monitor the status of faculty, staff, and student hires.
DGH Outstanding Staff Award Nominees
Kellie List
Senior Grants and Operations Manager
Global Center for the Integrated Health of Women, Adolescents, and Children (Global WACh)
Kellie has been described as “essential to Global WACh”. She has transformed the service provision of pre and post award from a stressful, highly variable experience to a standard, and near universally positive. She makes tools and complex regulations accessible. It is not uncommon to see Kellie be stopped in the hallway or pulled into a Zoom call to problem solve in real time with our partners and faculty, staff, and students. Kellie is a connector who treats everyone with respect but is also not afraid to speak out if she sees something that is not right.
Alyson Shumays
Managing Director
Global Center for Integrated Health of Women, Adolescents, and Children (Global WACh)
As managing director of GWACH, she has brought outstanding vision and leadership to the role. She has been pivotal in adapting Global WACh to a variety of changes – expected and unexpected - and has done this with poise and wisdom. She cares deeply about staff and at the same time has exceptional ability to develop clear systems, manage large complex budgets, and provide wise guidance to staff and faculty as needed. Alyson seeks out everyone’s views and takes time to ensure that she understands issues deeply and well before making decisions – making sure that things are done in a careful objective way.
Brynn McKinney
Operations Manager
Digital Initiatives Group (DIGI)
Brynn is the engine that keeps DIGI running smoothly day to day, often addressing issues or anticipating risks before they even become noticed by others in the DIGI center. She innovates every week on ways to improve the entire organization - from finances, to structures and processes to get work done, to team morale and engagement with each other. Brynn has provided the moral compass for DIGI to capture the team’s values and drive and has applied our values to all of the processes that she has built for the center and has personally spearheaded and ensured fair and equitable hiring practices in DIGI.
Marrianne Holec
Program Manager
International Training and Education Center for Health (I-TECH)
Marrianne cares deeply about the people with whom she works. She organizes lunches for our team, because we never work all together in person. To me, Marrianne is always behind the scenes, making sure that staff are treated with respect, have what they need, and are provided with sustainable work opportunities. She is very supportive of her staff and their professional development. As part of the process of opening PI-ships up to more staff, Marrianne investigated adding Program Managers to the list of those who were eligible to promote equity in access to professional development and leadership roles.
Basia Otto
HR Specialist
Basia has been a wonderful advocate for hiring students in the Department of Global Health. She goes above and beyond in seeking answers with the Graduate School, different HR offices and partners and has come up with ways to share information between APSS and HR which have improved our processes. Basia is responsive when people have questions, and patient when deadlines are missed despite best intentions. In particular, she has worked to respond to really tight deadlines and budget uncertainty with grace and excellence.
Ernie Lefler
Program Manager
Pathobiology Program
Ernie is the glue that holds the pathobiology program together. He works tirelessly to support the program and is a trusted colleague to all. Ernie always acts with integrity, accountability, and transparency, and is an ally and advocate for students from diverse backgrounds. Most of this work goes on behind the scenes, so many people probably don’t realize how much work he puts into making sure that things run smoothly for the students and for the faculty in the program as well. Ernie will respond to an email, text, or phone call at literally any time to make sure that someone with a concern doesn’t have to deal with it alone. He carefully considers issues, problems, and concerns, and always has measured advice and is the type of person who always has an idea about who to approach for additional help if necessary.