Engineering Community Appreciations

The College of Engineering community is full of individuals and entire units going above and beyond the scope of their job requirements to ensure our continued mission of education during the COVID-19 pandemic. Members of this community were invited to submit notes of appreciation for the actions of their peers. Those notes are presented below, as submitted. Appreciations can still be submitted and will be added to this page periodically.

Submitted May 13 through May 22

Jaime Focht

Ms. Focht takes care of the support for the undergraduates in nuclear engineering. Whenever I had questions about the course requirement, she always replied to my questions in a few hours with accurate information and detailed explanation. Her patience and responsibleness deserve this recognition.

Kellie Scofield

Kellie has led our advising team through the many academic grading changes (grade forgiveness, alternative grading), new entrance to major requirements, telecommuting, virtual NSO and so much more. She takes time to check on our whole team as we work ever so hard to take care of each student with fairness and empathy. No easy task. Kellie is an incredible asset!

Submitted May 6 through May 12

Ben Enders and Jessica Aguilar

To prepare for our large virtual live commencement events, Ben and Jessica dove with enthusiasm into learning how to record and prepare videos to show during the events. They further researched how to run large Zoom webinars, including how to cue-up the live camera of our commencement speakers and arrange the attendees view so that all looked seamless to the attendees. I have to imagine by the end they felt like Hollywood directors, sending out commands to get ready across the chat window to not only faculty but also to the astronaut-general who was our speaker, and calling for how our video was to be portrayed! Finally, when Jessica’s computer was called by some PSU system to update itself in the middle of the big event, Ben and Jessica worked as a team, re-adjusting who-would-do-what on the fly until they could get her computer under control again, doing all with such skill that no-one else noticed. Because of them, the events were a wonderful success!

Mark Maughmer

Mark has always been known for the connection he brings to the students in his classes — his love of teaching is apparent to anyone who has seen him lecture. So the transition to remote instruction has been particularly profound for him, away from the personal contact with students that he so loves. He’s worked hard to find a way to keep up his close contact with students and the personal touch he brings to lecture, even constructing a document camera on his dining table so that he can fluidly sketch out airfoils and aerodynamic equations in response to questions. He has refused to sacrifice the opportunities for students to tackle projects and deeper learning in his class, instead spending days managing the difficulties of downloading, annotating and returning back to students projects and deep-thinking assignments that must be graded by him personally. In doing so, he’s truly managed to prepare all our juniors in the required AERSP 306 “Aeronautics” class for big projects next year.

Bob Melton

What a time to be director of our undergraduate program, and instructor of key courses required of all the seniors who want to specialize in space systems (which is to say, most of our seniors)! Dr. Melton cares deeply about our students. Once the pragmaticS of remote instruction were in place, he also worked hard to deal with the symbolic aspects of our community. As faculty marshal for all of Penn State, he was instrumental in the task force addressing revised commencement — in his role in the faculty senate, including in undergraduate curriculum and in academic integrity, he was instrumental in finding a path forward for all PSU undergraduates that balanced the justice of maintaining Penn State standards in the curriculum with the mercy of alternate grading to recognize the struggles faced by many students. Finally, within Aerospace he was a passionate advocate for recognizing the accomplishments of our undergraduates, helping lead our large virtual recognition ceremony for our BSAE recipients and hosting the event with dignity, warmth and humor. Our department — and all of Penn State — has benefited from the compassionate spirit he has brought to us.

Lindsay Moist

As our department’s lead staff, Lindsay masterminded our tradition to remote operation, and then talked our staff through all the changes in operation, training them on telecommuting and new policies and procedures. Throughout, she’s cemented her reputation for unflappable calm and for a deep sense of responsibility for keeping the department running despite all the difficulties. She’s re-assured and inspired our staff to stick with remote operations even when facing difficulties with quarantine — she’s worked closely with the department head to re-align staff duties and budget priorities to the ‘new normal’ — and she has ramped up the degree that she calls together the staff for mutual support and re-assurance, keeping everyone informed and aware of how the whole team of Aerospace staff is working together!

Kate Myers

With the transition to virtual commencement, there were substantially more communications needs this year relative to previous semesters. Tons of moving parts at the college and departmental levels with needs for web presence, email messaging, video development, etc. Kate stepped into our communications coordination role and performed masterfully. Could not have done it without her!

OERA Staff

Due to the overwhelming responses to the COVID-19, the Office of Engineering Research Administration has experienced a significant increase in workload, both in pre and post award. A lot of the responses require a short turnaround time. All OERA staff has shown great work ethic, dedication, and team spirit to get the job done. Even when it means working overtime, juggling between increased personal and professional responsibilities, in a less-than-ideal home-working environment. I'm very happy to be part of such an awesome team!

Jeff Popadines

Jeff Popadines (Change Champion) has been so helpful identifying new ways to assist the College with training support pre-GOLIVE of SIMBA! This remote lifestyle has presented new challenges and "we are" going to be able to help utilizing our 365 and ZOOM platforms. Thanks Jeff!

Justin Pritchard

Outstanding undergraduate professor in times of COVID-19. He came up with the greatest ways to make the class as dynamic and interactive as possible. He also created a whole new class section just to learn about the virus which was super cool. Also, he was always there on Zoom to help us and was very emphatic with all of us. He allowed us to contact him 24/7 with any type of questions, and he just made classes so cool in spite of being online. He really tried his best, and I admire that.

Sven Schmitz

Dr. Schmitz has long been recognized as one of our top instructors, which is why we ask him to cover some of our hardest courses required of all our juniors — such as AERSP 312 this semester. He enjoys being with the students, and he is known for looking back to the students to see where his explanations in lecture have triggered comprehension — and where he sees confusion, he is known for circling back, finding other ways to describe the most difficult concepts until everyone in the class understands. So the transition to remote instruction was at first hard for Dr. Schmitz, lacking in that real-time connection — and he deserves a big shout-out for soldiering on, for finding new ways to remotely connect with the students, and for putting in the extra effort to make sure every student had the chance to learn the concepts that will form the basis of their work in their senior year. His caring for his students and for their learning is exemplary.

Puneet Singla

As we moved to remote instruction, Dr. Puneet Singla used his position as instructing all our juniors in AERSP 304 “System Dynamics and Control”, and also helping instruct the 60% of our seniors who are specializing in spacecraft, to reach out to students who struggled with the quarantine, with remote instruction, and with their home situation. He quickly became the faculty member who best-identified which students were struggling — even the confidant of students who were infected or were worrying about family who were infected. Throughout, he quickly also mastered his own style of remote instruction that focused on being available to students, providing extra office hours and chances for students to reach out with questions on the material and to find a welcoming ear to talk. Despite all this extra effort - on top of suddenly also needing to home school his twin girls - he also led our graduate studies committee to wrap up a review of our graduate program, and supervised prize-winning theses to completion. His just-announced promotion to full professor is well-deserved, but he also deserves a shout-out for his heart-felt day-to-day contributions to our students!

Brian Wolfgang

Brian, our Associate Director, has been an amazing leader for the Pennsylvania Housing Research Center within the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering. He has sent out daily email updates to our team to keep us on the same page and working together while remote, and he actually cares about how we are doing as humans. Also, Brian has been extremely understanding of personal/family issues during the pandemic while we all deal with the challenges of working from home.

Submitted May 1 through May 5

Tammy Coval

Tammy Coval is the Graduate Staff Assistant in the Engineering Science and Mechanics Department. Tammy works tirelessly assisting the Graduate Officer and Graduate Programs Coordinator. Working remotely can be a challenge for anyone. Tammy takes it all in stride and goes above and beyond to assist faculty, students and staff. She is doing an exceptional job and we are very fortunate to have her! Thank you Tammy - Your hard work is very much appreciated!

Lorri Dotts

Lorri is so supportive in her role in the Academic Affairs Office of Electrical Engineering. Lorri order all the supplies we need and knows where and how to get everything. This has been exceptionally helpful as we work remotely and she continues doing such an awesome job of it! Lorri has been assisting other staff in many varied tasks in the remote work situation as everything seems to take longer while we adjust. She has been so helpful flexing to tasks she isn't familiar with. Kudos to you Lorri :)

Mariah Drapcho

Mariah Drapcho is an Administrative Support Assistant in the Academic Affairs Office of Electrical Engineering, but her real title should be graduate admissions expert! She is fielding volumes of questions from international applicants. With so much up in the air as far as arrival for FA2020 semester, VISA uncertainties, deferrals of admission, Mariah still conveys that WE ARE….Penn State…we know what we’re doing and we’re taking care of it. She confidently responds to and eases some of the worries of our applicants. Mariah records admits, accepts, and funding offers for the 6 different research areas of EE, reporting the statistics when requested by our Department Head and Graduate Program Coordinator. Great job Mariah!

Debby Mayes

Even as she transitioned from a job that required her at her desk in the Hammond building to, overnight, learning to work from her dining room table, Debby continued as the natural leader amongst our staff and faculty for reaching out -- for intuiting who is struggling and who needs help -- and connecting with everyone, and bringing together those who can help each other with their work and with their kind words.

Nicole Wolfe

Nicole Wolfe is the Administrative Manager for the Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics. During this time of teleworking, Nicole has shown extreme leadership. She initiated weekly Zoom meetings with the staff not only to discuss current updates, etc., but also as a way for staff in keep interacting with one another and share positive, encouraging messages. She does not hesitate to assist faculty/staff when needed and goes above and beyond to ensure everything is running smoothly. We are very lucky to have her! Thank you Nicole - Your efforts are very much appreciated!

Submitted April 23 through April 30

Aerospace Computing Staff: Mark Catalano, Kirk Heller & Ben Enders

Our computing staff have worked tirelessly to get all our instructors equipped for remote instruction, and all our staff transitioned to telework. they have not only prepared the equipment, but also been the source of knowledge and inspiration for all our community with training and mentoring on 'how to' -- teaching everyone how to meet remotely and then using the meetings to step them through the many tricks and trades. Their efforts have included the hair-raising experiences of remotely re-installing complete operating systems on corrupted computers -- learning to work the new purchasing policies to order laptops, webcams and electronic pens for grading even as everyone else was also trying to snap up the last stock, and in parallel working remote automated protocols for creating VM methods for students to access the software needed from the Aerospace Computer Lab for their final projects. Throughout they've kept a marvelous sense of humor going, such as 'Captain Kirk' now appearing to everyone in virtual meetings to be at the helm of the USS Enterprise, complete with cats jumping in and out of the virtual background. A hearty thank you from the entire Aerospace community!

EE Financial Staff (Megan Bowersox, Jill Blonski, Lori Pifer)

Our EE Financial staff have adjusted extremely well and really pulled together to provide support for one another and for our faculty and students. They adapted to the changes quickly, remotely handling the graduate student appointments, tracking COVID-19 purchases, and securing proper electronic signatures for financial paperwork under these difficult conditions. This team deserves a big applause for adjusting very well and for successfully meeting deadlines. We are very blessed with such a dynamic team.

Ted Graef

Ted joined SEDTAPP this semester as SEDTAPP's new Director of Engineering Entrepreneurship after working in industry for years. He was teaching a residential class online, and did not expect to teach via Zoom. I was honored to sit in on his graduate students' end of year final presentations for ENGR 804. He has done a phenomenal job not only teaching via Zoom, but showing these students how to be entrepreneurs. I was blown away by what they have learned from him. Great job, Ted!

Meg Handley

Meg used Zoom to put together a going away/end of semester tribute to all the Engineering Leadership Development Minor students who are graduating. This highlighted what they have done over the course of their career in ELDM at PSU, and what they will be doing once they have graduated. It is an amazing video, using all the Zoom recordings.

Laura Hennessey

Laura has been showing a lot of leadership with her fellow staff members. She does not hesitate to assist her colleagues in thinking through a student question or finding resources. She is always willing to help.

SherryDawn Jackson

SherryDawn Jackson is the Manager of Academic Affairs in EE. Working remotely has its challenges for all of us, and for her, working primarily with graduate students, she has found a way to be upbeat and helpful! Her recent email started: “First of all, I really miss all of you! I hope you’re are staying safe and healthy and getting some fresh air and sunshine, a great cure for many things!” Our students are extremely important to her, thank you SherryDawn for being there for them!

Kiersten Kling

Kiersten Kling is the Department Head Staff Assistant in EE and has done a great job ensuring all deadlines are met and has continued successfully while teleworking. She has a “can do” attitude and is always happy to assist. Recently, she willingly agreed to step up to serve as the Assistant to the Director of EECS in addition to her current duties, to cover for a staff member who had surgery after breaking her ankle. It is a pleasure to see teamwork in action, it is this kind of support that makes difficult times a bit easier to manage. Thank you Kiersten for going the extra mile – your efforts are very much appreciated!

Katie Koenig

Katie Koenig is an Administrative Staff member in EE who returned from maternity leave during COVID-19. Her return was seamless, and she immediately began processing visas and assisting with summer salaries (a new task for her). Her support during the current remote working environment has been very effective. Thank you Katie for adapting so well and providing EE Faculty, post docs, researchers and colleagues such wonderful timely support!

Sakshi Kukreja

Sakshi Kukreja is an Administrative Staff member in EE who handles EE Events, and provides back up support to EE Administrators with various tasks. During COVID-19, she began to update guidelines and quickly recommended a remote event idea “What We Miss About Being Together In The Office” where we could all just talk about how much we miss being together and share notes on how each other's physical presence made our work life so much nicer. She also worked to send out birthday emails and assisted with creating a “Happy Administrative Professionals Day 2020” flyer for our EE Staff that included positive comments like, “Focus on the step in front of you, not the whole staircase”; “There are so many reasons to be happy today”; “Even on a cloudy day, keep your eyes fixed at the sun”; and “Every storm runs out of rain”. Thank you so much Sakshi for inspiring happiness and hope!

Dena Lang

Dena organized and hosted a virtual graduation send-off party (via Zoom) for the May graduates of SEDTAPP's M.Eng. in Engineering Leadership and Innovation Management (ELIM) Program.

Xiaofeng Liu

Dr. Liu is a rather compassionate professor. After taking two of his classes in different semesters it is clear that he is a pure genius. However, he posses an ability to share his knowledge while understanding it may take longer for others to absorb what he is teaching. Although he strives for excellence in his students, he recognizes effort and is always willing to help. Thank you Dr. Liu.

Paul Mittan (and Meg Handley and Dena Lang)

Paul Mittan is the new Director of Engineering Leadership Development (ELD) in SEDTEPP. In his first month on the job, he, along with his ELD Associate Directors, Meg Handley and Dena Lang, put together the first virtual ELD Advisory Board Meeting via Zoom. It was a phenomenal Zoom meeting for SEDTAPP faculty, ELD alumni, and corporate sponsors.

Crystal Rearick

In these extremely trying times, Crystal has dug in to assist me in clearing accounts and cleaning up CSE's finances. She is truly a God-send. She's the type of person that if she does not know the answer, she digs until she gets one. She's amazing with our faculty, our staff and our management team. She is dependable, funny, caring and reliable.

Our department interviewed 40+ faculty this spring so while our Department Head staff assistant and I worked collectively on the process of hiring, Crystal took our finances by the lead and is keeping me abreast of everything she's doing along the way, to make our transition to SIMBA a smooth and easy one. I believe people who work this hard deserve recognition.

Gabriele Rhinehart

Gabi Rhinehart is the Undergraduate Staff Assistant in EE. There are not many like her who go above and beyond to build relationships with her co-workers, especially if there are children involved. She certainly has a special place in her heart for children. During these extraordinary times, she has found a way to lighten up the pressure as the Easter Bunny hiding eggs outside of a co-workers house (who was completely unaware) for their three children to find. During Christmas, Gabi has delivered Advent calendars for children to track the number of days left until December 25th, she is considered the “Mom” who shares life’s experiences and advice to be helpful. These are just some of the ways that she genuinely reveals her care for others. During our zoom sessions, she keys in on the babies and kids in the background and asks how it is going. What a way to build cohesiveness and family spirt among our staff. Thank you Gabi for being so caring!!!

Jen Saltsgiver

Jen has worked to keep the EAC running and has tirelessly worked on moving our NSO program all on-line this summer. This is uncharted territory for all of us, and Jen keeps us afloat :)

Kelly Schiffer

Kelly was our latest staff hire, who started on March 2nd. March 12th we were told we would be working remotely. We weren't able to provide Kelly with her own laptop until this past week (end of March) but she logged on everyday from her own computer and did our morning check in via Teams. She took on our SRA process and learned it from the ground up and did a terrific job. She took on the lead for the CSE portion of the EECS virtual graduation and she's been working with other staff members to dig in and learn her position in a grass roots fashion. I believe our staff absolutely adores her and we believe she should be recognized for being an awesome "newbie!!"

Submitted April 16 through April 22

Cassidy Cecil

Cassidy Cecil provides administrative staff support in EE, and was filling in for a staff member returning from leave. One of her main responsibilities is to process wages and with COVID-19, she has assisted with the very complicated challenges of paying our wage students, requiring much detail and review and additional processing. She also is working on visas, which requires her to deal with constant change/notices and adapting to them. She is doing exceptional and goes above and beyond to make sure she fulfills requests. Thank you for your dedication and hard work and, for all you do Cassidy!

Rynne Crissinger

Rynne stepped up to the plate to serve above and beyond her normal duties by sending electronic birthday greetings and thank you messages while the stewardship team is experiencing a crunch with SIMBA and endowment reviews.

Rynne Crissinger

Rynne has been very helpful during this time with ordering supplies to learning new processes to help alleviate coworkers that have multiple projects going on. She is always offering to help where she can and always has a great attitude.

Alyshia Dann

Alyshia Dann is a Financial Coordinator in EE. She performs a variety of tasks, and one very important role is to lead the center staff (three total), assisting with needs, sharing helpful resources, meeting with them regularly, providing the assistance as needed. During this time of remote work, she continued by having zoom sessions with the staff and connecting with each regularly. We were trying to complete our Grad RA appointments and that presented some challenges technologically. Additionally, two of the three center staff were new to our department and this process was new to them. It has been amazing to witness the success of the team she leads while taking on more and more work. She is handling the extra pressures with extreme grace. She even volunteered to place orders for supplies for staff in her surrounding area so they would have items they need and could pick them up in a central location while maintaining social distancing. Thanks goes out to Alyshia for all she manages in EE – she is a pillar that stands strong during times like these!

Jennifer Dubuque

Jennifer provides weekly staff meetings to always provide her team with informative information and updates. She also checks in one on one with staff to make sure everything is going alright.

Adam Hackenbert

Mike Morgan and Adam Hackenberg provide IT support for EE. They have been extremely supportive during this time. No matter the need or request, or the manner made, they respond rapidly and with exceptional results, fixing problems, placing orders when needed to get our faculty and staff set up remotely. They divided up our staff members and have made deliveries to homes with items our staff need to operate efficiently, alleviating our staff from arranging a trip to the office. They both have a “can do spirit” and are extremely knowledgeable and helpful which eases the stress level for our technology needs overall. Our staff agree, we have “exceptional IT support” and many have said the best at Penn State!

Jane Harris

With short notice, Jane has stepped up to take on many commencement-related communications, including updating the program and website and spearheading and coordinating the student marshal stories. She also has sprung into action to quickly and efficiently build new web pages, such as the We Are storytelling page, the engineering COVID-19 page and the appreciation page, to name a few, and quickly makes updates to these pages when requested.

Cheryl Knobloch

Cheryl Knobloch is going above and beyond to support those involved in the Women in Engineering Program during this time of crisis. She is tirelessly working to make sure we all have the resources and support we need. While navigating tricky personal situations, such as helping her daughter reschedule her wedding, she still finds time to support each and every one of us in our personal and academic needs. Cheryl has come up with creative and innovative ways to continue our end of year traditions and come together as a community. Thank you for brightening my day every time we talk! We all appreciate you!

Mechanical Engineering Deparment

They've decided to put together a yearbook for all of the graduating seniors in the major, which is one nice thing to come out of this situation.

Sarah Meyer

Sarah has stepped up to make sure all our donors receive e-mail recognition for their gifts to support our students, faculty, and programs. She has also worked with Ashley WennersHerron (thank you Ashley) to create electronic birthday cards for our donors and alumni who are celebrating birthdays during the pandemic. Sarah has taken the lead managing the clean-up for budgets for the SIMBA conversion and will be our point-of-contact for SIMBA and eSteward.

Lori Miraldi

Lori has continued finding creative ways to bring the Engineering Ambassadors together during this difficult time. She has hosted the regular weekly meetings for our organization via Zoom, allowing newly admitted members to meet their future peers, and brought in a guest speaker for the past several weeks who is speaking about health topics that are very relevant right now. She also has continued seeking ways that we can continue our mission of outreach, by creating various social media platforms and encouraging members to make outreach videos. She is also trying to find a way to celebrate the seniors by getting input from members, which is especially touching to me as a graduating student. She has made us a priority in this time, which is something that certainly (and understandably) cannot be said for everyone.

Mike Morgan

Office for Digital Learning

I want to give a shoutout to my co-workers in my office for all that they have done to guide and help faculty throughout the change to remote teaching.

Charlie Purdum

Professor Purdum served as my capstone advisor last semester and my professor for IE 434 and IE 436. He has been an integral part of my senior year and a constant source of positivity and support. He genuinely cares about his students and has helped me bounce back from losing my full time job offer due to COVID-19. I'm looking forward to sharing my future success stories with him after graduation!

Erin Rogers

Erin is a Proposal and Award Generalist in EE. She has once again shown how resilient she can be by working remotely in a very busy, high-demanding position while schooling three children remotely and serving as a COE SIMBA Champion and COE SAC member. She has shown this particularly, through her outstanding performance, positive and courteous interactions and initiative to make sure tasks are done timely, accurately and completely, while we are working in a remote environment. One significant challenge, while managing from home, is mentoring a diverse group of faculties to follow current university policies and guidelines related to pre and post award research activities, etc. It is not only about helping them to learn the process, but to help them meet critical deadlines and adapt to changes, and today, is quite significant, setting up different communication methods and approval processes. She has seamlessly implemented necessary steps for these challenges, using her ingenuity and competence and skills and resources. She is considered a “rock” in EE and many of our faculty would be lost without her as the “go to” person, that has not changed even when they don’t see her in the office. Many kudos’s go out to her for stretching far to meet all these demands and challenges!

Daniel Russell

Dr. Russell heads up the Distance Education portion of the Graduate Program in Acoustics, makes sure students and faculty are able to create valuable learning environments, and many other projects to keep students feel connected through this tough time. However, throughout this mountainous amount of work, he brings so much joy to our weekly department meetings and his classroom. Not satisfied with a mere background, he is all in: https://twitter.com/drussellpsu.

Phil Savage

Phil's been doing a nice job communicating to the department during this difficult time. He remains positive. For Administrative Professional Day and to show his appreciation to the staff of Chemical Engineering, he personally hand delivered goodies to each member of the staff's home. It literally took him all day but it was such a nice, sincere gesture and brought some cheer to us. He also supported local State College businesses where he purchased the goodies. Thanks Phil!

Paige Vernon

Paige Vernon has been helping out her community in Mechanicsburg by sewing masks for home health care workers. Since March Paige along with other community volunteers have sewn over 3,400 masks.

Kevin Waltz

Kevin graciously offered to deliver a check to donor and member services saving me a 40 mile trip to campus! This was a time savings for the college, but more so an act of kindness that shows his true caring and supportive spirit. It demonstrates how he cares about the college and his colleagues by going beyond his required duties. Thank you Kevin.

Jeffrey Watson

JR Watson is our Facilities Rep and Safety Officer in EE. He has been so supportive to our overall facilities to make sure we are safe. He doesn’t worry about himself, but cares more that others are taken care of. He visits the facility weekly to distribute the mail and has effectively communicated with us about the situation for EE, he walks the buildings and checks the labs and hallways, and even waters plants and scans items to our staff to keep them from having to go to their offices. He has continued to remain aware of changes for upcoming renovations scheduled this summer and helping to strategize and expedite anything we can while working remotely. He shares input and answers questions in our zoom sessions with the staff. We are so thankful to have JR, it is staff members like JR that ease the stress of situations like this. Thank you JR for everything you do to keep us safe!

Andrew Zydney

He's kept his enthusiasm up for our chemical engineering elective class, and has shifted the class around focusing on some of the COVID-19 research related to our class objectives. I never skip a zoom class because he is still teaching us many new ideas and topics!

Submitted April 13 through April 16

Erin Hendrick

Erin has stepped up to lead communications for the University-wide MASC initiative, an extremely fast moving effort that has visibility to the highest levels of the institution. She is balancing this expanded role with her ongoing departmental communications responsibilities. She also kickstarted a positive storytelling initiative within the college to highlight ways that students, faculty, and staff have responded during the transition to remote learning and working.

Brian Naberezny

Brian has worked very hard in the transition to online learning. He has made an effort to individually reach out to his 100+ students to make sure everyone is ok. He figured out Zoom super quickly and always keeps his students updated on the latest University and course policies regarding remote learning. The first week of online learning was scary and new. Brian gave us some tips on how to handle it and keep moving the best we can.</

One challenge he had was transitioning all his lab sections to an online CAD lab. It is difficult to conduct a lab like this online, but Brian is constantly offering any help he can. His work has made the transition relatively easy for most students! Thank you Brian!</

Heather Preisedanz

She is my PhD adviser and is doing an amazing job helping me with my research and well-being remotely. Dr. Preisedanz is managing our large lab group, writing proposals and meeting her deadlines, all while having her young daughter at home with her! She’s a rock star and the role model we need during these trying times!

Submitted April 2 through April 12

Bill Ames

Bill Ames quickly put into place an Engineering Science & Mechanics Staff SharePoint site where he produced and uploaded with various “How to” videos for various IT systems to make teleworking as smooth as possible for all staff members. He worked very diligently to ensure that all faculty and staff’s IT needs were met so that online teaching and remote working was successful!

During Spring Break, when Bill was the only IT member in the Department, he anticipated the call for remote working and teaching and sprang into action. Within a few days, he had equipped all the ESM staff with hardware and training so that they could, with secure access, mirror their desktops from home. He held practice sessions to make sure all systems were “go”. Bill provided training sessions for ESM faculty and students across the campus and assisted them to set up their remote teaching and learning needs. He expedited purchase of iPads/Surfaces for TAs and grading, and upgrades of faculty computers, as needed, to handle the increased teleworking load. Bill was extremely positive throughout the transition, which was extremely demanding on his time. Bill made a major contribution to a seamless teleworking transition in ESM.

Bill has been a central figure in the deployment of technology solutions to ensure the move to online work for both faculty and staff. Not only was he helpful in helping with various pieces of software and technology, but he also anticipated the need for equipment and training. Moreover, he has displayed a keen attention to security standards and adherence to University policies and guidelines. And he did all of this in a very timely fashion.

Matt Barone

Matt has been an essential liaison between the college and admissions. He has also been a wonderful support system in setting up virtual sessions through slate and providing assistance with scholarships and truly a wonderful team player!

Anna Pearl Belinda

Anna Pearl has gone above what she is normally asked of her. She has altered her schedule to meet with the team (since Patrick and I both have littles at home, this has been really helpful), she's picked up what I may not have been able to finish, stepping up to take on more tasks and thinking outside the box to help our students. She has had a positive attitude through this whole thing, making it that much more bearable. Anna Pearl is fresh out of college, but her maturity, dedication, and willingness to learn, puts her above so many others.

Holly Benscoter

Holly has helped numerous times with technical difficulties, including meeting me at a location for laptop supplies, so I didn't have to go into the building.

Boeing Capstone Team (DroneForce7)

My team has continued to work extremely hard doing exceptional work for Boeing in these changing times and have gone above and beyond, even with the restrictions in place. After our Critical Design Review presentation, Boeing engineers were extremely impressed with the team’s work and were told by these engineers that this capstone group is producing “award-worthy” results.

Somer Brown

Somer has been tireless in her efforts to keep the rest of us on track. From IT trouble shooting to tracking the infinite zoom meetings to all of the other things asked of her (and there are A LOT), Somer is on top of it. Not only is her work impeccable (while also managing a five year old!), she is also a gift of a colleague who does far more than is necessary to bring joy.

Change Champion Network

SIMBA 101 Transcript Status of COMPLETE for 100% of the team! Amazing!

Youyou Cheng

"Youyou has ordered masks from her home area back in China where she still has friends and family. She has given them to the hospital and school district. A few days ago she offered them to CoE (Mike House) and she copied me on that email. She allowed me to offer them to ARL. Today she gave ARL 500 masks. When they offered to reimburse her, she said ""no, we are all in this together"". WOW!"

Michael Dempsey

Mike is a TA in EE 210. He has gone out of his way to help convert the EE lab materials to a format suitable for online delivery.

Charlotte deVries

Charlotte changed her Zoom background to look like the cockpit of an X-Wing fighter, and she has a replica helmet that she wears to complete the costume. She is working really hard to entertain her students (and colleagues) while we are all making due during a difficult time. She was featured in her costume in a promotional video on Facebook last week. I also have a photo that I will happily share (this form does not include anywhere to upload attachments) We are at Behrend, I am not sure we are eligible for this award, but I thought I would nominate her anyways. :)

Engineering Advising Center

This team quickly came together to continue to offer high-quality advising services to our College of Engineering students from a distance. Most of our advisers had never held a zoom advising appointment prior to a few weeks ago. This team is on the front-lines seeing the questions and concerns that our students express, and provides them accurate and timely information. Through it all, they have remained connected with each other as a strong team; even managing to welcome two new staff members into our midst under these difficult circumstances.

Engineering Career Resources & Employer Relations

When Dean Schwartz asked Staff and Faculty to work from home starting the following week, the NCTS Department was overwhelmed with requests for laptops and had a waiting list. As I was prepping Engineering Career Resources & Employer Relations employees I recalled that they had several laptops stored away for career fairs. I spoke with Rick McClintic and Kimberly Fox about using these systems as loaners fro other staff/departments and Rick gave the permission to do so. In doing this, I was able to secure 8 more laptops for distribution to other staff in the DO who may not have had access to a laptop at all for working at home. I am very grateful for ECR loaning these laptops out to NCTS in a time of need. Joining this department was the second best decision in my life. The first was marrying my wife! ;)

Engineering Finance Office

"In a time where we are concerned about our students, faculty and departments and switching to online learning, the Finance team is working diligently behind the scenes making sure that Income and Expense and Pay and Effort functions continue to flow without glitches. I think a lot of times people think we are pushing policy and even saying no to requests not realizing that our job is to safeguard sponsor and IRS guidelines, and to ensure the faculty, department, the college and even the university is not in jeopardy of having monies pulled from research or worse have the faculty, department, college or even the university fined for not following these guidelines.

We have an amazing leadership team and we couldn’t do it without them. There is huge respect for Lisa Sharkey and Lisa Hill and the wealth of knowledge and background information they bring to the team. Lisa S is going to be truly missed when she retires as she not only knows any and everything about grants management, cost share, awards etc. but she also shows us daily what a true leader is with her team effort and care and concern for her staff. Lisa Hill deserves just as much praise for her huge wealth of knowledge of pay and effort, Workday, awards, policies etc. She shows her leadership, team effort and concern for her staff daily as well.

Although Tim Shuey hasn’t been with COE Finance very long before being thrust into this Covid-19 pandemic, his years of service to the university and knowledge he brings to our office is to be commended. He addresses issues and concerns with not just the higher level but with departments, staff and his finance staff. He truly seems to take his staff concerns of policies, procedures as well as expertise as a welcome opportunity to learn as much as he can about our college and help to streamline processes and concerns that arise. This is a huge breath of fresh air knowing that we have a leader that hears us and can see the “whole picture”.

Our team is truly amazing in the way we work together, assist others and step up when needed to assist anyone that needs help or guidance, especially in this time where we are all working from our homes."

Vikki Gearhart

Has provided a lot of technical support, not only through email, but facebook posts with helpful tips.

Gary L. Gray

Gary has gone far above the call of duty by organizing help sessions for distance ed. for faculty colleagues in the ESM Dept. who have not done distance ed. before. He gave detailed instructions and practical time-saving advice on the most appropriate resources to use, how to do assessments, how to communicate instructions for assignments and tests to students, and what to expect from students. He saved many colleagues such as myself countless hours of time.

Meg Handley

She has worked tirelessly to support ALL of the edesign 100 classes/instructors in making sure they have the support they need to maintain the excellent quality of the edesign 100 class. This effort impacts all of our freshmen and shows them what a dedicated and supportive faculty member looks like at psu.

Scott Heckman

Scott did an outstanding job in helping each faculty and staff member in IME get settled and be able to telework; he did not have any help in doing so and patiently attended to our needs. I would like to thank Scott very much and to congratulate him for keeping calm.

Scott Heckman

Scott has been tireless in his support of IME as our IT point person and general handyman. The department has transitioned to online instruction with many software assignments for lab and coursework. These student assignments are typically done in the Leonhard building. Scott has ensured that VDI support is both available and in working order so that students can complete assigned work. Moreover, he has helped faculty and staff set up equipment at their homes to enable telework. He also volunteered to pick up mail from the College. IME has one IT staff member. Because of Scott's initiative and ability to streamline operations, IME is able to rely on our automation capabilities as we telework.

Diane Hockenberry and Erin Ammerman

I am a new-hire in the CSE department and Diane and Erin have gone out of their way to make me feel welcomed and to help me figure out how to do my job. They both are probably working double what they do in the office. And on top of all the stress this has brought, both of them have amazing cheerful attitudes that really rub off on the rest of the team. Amazing leadership that has built a team I'm proud to be a part of. They deserve this!!

Beth Huber

Beth goes above and beyond in not only her position but other positions to help anyone who needs it. Beth has great work ethic, caring to the students and faculty, always great at taking initiative, and the list could continue on. We are lucky to have her!

Andrew Krebs

Apart from keeping us on our toes with his constant hair and virtual background changes, Andrew (with the help of Ashley WennersHerron as well!) has been instrumental in ensuring that communications throughout the college stay clean, direct, and consistent. He and his team are representing our college extremely well during these hard times.

Meridyth Lanza

"Meridyth patiently and remotely walked me through the ZOOM meeting and share screen transfer process for a Zoom meeting with co-hosts. Nothing like jumping in the deep end. The actual meeting was going well until my internet connection became unstable and was lost. Thankfully the attendees were all PSFEI employees.

I would like to recognize Meridyth for her patient and informative orientation efforts.

After the event, my followup diagnostics indicated that my cable modem needed to be reset because of errors present." Meridyth Lanza- PSFEI - Patient and Exceptional Zoom orientation provider.

Christine Luzier

It is my honor to nominate Christine Luzier. Christine started as IME's department head staff assistant on March 2, 2020. In the storm that followed, she hasn't missed a step in supporting the department head or the department. She is always positive and supportive. Without having any background in the academic side of the university, she has shown a true can-do spirit and is most deserving of this ZOOMbie award.

Jesse McTernan

For creating a great parody video that went a good kind of viral. His video of remote teaching on Zoom brought some much needed humor to a challenging time. The video has been seen by many who can relate to the underlying truth of trying to manage teaching remotely and home life. https://news.psu.edu/story/613375/2020/03/29/professor-celebrates-successful-remote-learning-video-parody

Jessica Menold

I am currently taking a prototyping class with Dr. Menold. Yes, you might be thinking, "what a challenge that must be to prototype without the tools and resources at Penn State?" Well, Dr. Menold has completely revamped our class to tailor to the needs of the current pandemic happening. Each week we are submitting new designs and prototypes to help in the MASC effort being headed by Timothy Simpson. It's really cool to be apart of the effort and put our engineering skills to use in a real world scenario. We are also currently working on making our own start-ups in this class. We did a lot of physical prototyping while at school, but now she has geared the class towards an online marketing approach. We are creating websites and logos while still prototyping. She is teaching us how to prototype in our very homes. She is very deserving of being recognized. She has put 150% into making this class worth while.

Catherine Murphy

Catherine has supported all of EECS faculty in the move to online teaching and assessment. She has constantly researched resourced and shared them with the faculty. She has also assisted faculty when they have had problems.

Kate Myers

Nothing more to say than…she's just awesome

Networking, Computer, and Training Services

Our whole Network, Computer, and Training Services team is awesome and deserves accolades, but the following have recently gone above and beyond during this unusual time in which we find ourselves:

Vikki and Dawn - for their innate ability to communicate, teach tech, and find solutions, always upbeat and with a smile. I have particularly enjoyed Vikki's Facebook tips! They are also a riot!

Rick - He has come to the rescue of many to enable us to safely work at home, all while under pressure and without complaint!

Shan - The miracle cure for any database problem or situation, whether it be in the office or working remotely. Always full of ideas, and maybe a tad bit of sarcasm. Takes a good photo too!

Office for Digital Learning

Since the shift to remote teaching, the Office for Digital Learning has provided one-to-one support for more than 50 faculty members across eleven departments/online graduate programs. Their support has covered topics from recording and posting videos to using Canvas to support academic integrity. ODL also developed and posted a number of guides to support faculty members as they shifted to remote teaching and assessment. The Director of the ODL has maintained close contact with University groups that are addressing critical issues related to remote teaching and ensured that the College’s COVID-19 Crisis Team was apprised of this information in a timely manner. ODL has been an indispensable contributor to the success of our faculty in shifting to remote teaching and assessment.

Office of Digital Learning

ODL has been so fantastic. Their contingency planning page was well thought out and put together, their office hours are a huge help, and every person I have reached out to for help has gone above and beyond. Special thanks to Casey Fenton for his help.

Pay and Effort Team - Finance Office

No salary clearing errors for the month - all processed remotely from home! Way to go!

Sarah Rhyner

Sarah has been a great help in getting everyone set up to work from home. She is always very pleasant when providing support. I enjoy working with her.

Sarah Rhyner

Sarah's exceptional dedication under these unprecedented conditions is highly worth recognition. The situation we are in brought tremendous demand to Sarah to make teleworking and zoom possible for many, to which she responded impressively. Thanks, Sarah.

Robert Rioux

For many professors, the transition to online learning seriously impacted the way they taught their class. I can say without a doubt that Dr. Rioux has continued to provide his students the same exact education as they would have received on campus. His online lectures have gone very smoothly and are just as informative online as they are in person. Dr. Rioux is diligent in making announcements on Canvas and at the start of lectures to ensure no one is confused about how the class is being run. He even kept all of the office hours we used to have in person, simply moving them online for students to attend. Even more important than all of those actions, Dr. Rioux has maintained a positive outlook and remained open to feedback so that he can continue to provide us with the best education possible in these times. Dr. Rioux has transitioned seamlessly to online teaching and I am exceedingly grateful for his dedication.

Sarah Ritter

She is continuously working to make Zoom delivery easier and more meaningful for our students. She has been coming up with ways to prototype while delivering classes remotely.

Sarah Ritter

Dr. Sarah Ritter is our SEDTAPP EDSGN 100 course coordinator. She works tirelessly to keep our course at the highest standard possible to ensure that the first year engineering students learn what is needed to perform well in their future college courses and ALSO as they become practicing engineers. She helps any faculty (up to 20 or so each semester) understand and facilitate the EDSGN course fully with appropriate curriculum and technological aides. We would not be nearly as successful in teaching EDSGN 100 without Sarah's leadership.

Sarah Ritter

Sarah is the rock of the first year engineering design experience at Penn State, and she has embraced the challenge of teaching a hands-on design course head-on. She has been a leader in our department for online education and has helped innumerable colleagues transition their courses online. She has continued to prioritize student experiences and education above all else. In short, she is by far the best educator I have ever met and she has only continued to shine in the recent chaos. Sarah is truly the best human in our department. I am constantly shocked at her resilience and ability to turn any situation into a valuable teaching moment for students. She deserves a lot of recognition :)

Sarah Ritter

We’ve all certainly been working hard and overcoming our fair share of challenges, but the first person who came to mind for me was Sarah. As the course chair for EDSGN 100, she has been putting in a gargantuan amount of effort to make the shift to online learning for EDSGN 100 as smooth as possible for hundreds of students and more than a dozen faculty. With the focus on hands-on learning and making in EDSGN 100, this transition honestly had no right to be as smooth as it was! That is due in large part to her work. Sarah has also given me great advice for moving my grad course online as well.

Sarah Ritter

To lead the the very important first-year course (EDSGN 100 Introduction to Engineering Design) through the rapid transition to remote-learning. Sarah has been remarkable at helping a cadre of 12 faculty figure out how to take a course that has many hands-on activities into the virtual realm. In addition, she is leading the planning for a possible all virtual session for the summer.

Sarah Ritter

Sarah has been responding quickly, confidently, and accurately to the continual changes regarding remote learning. She is a leader in the department and producing quality content that we can all use.

Sarah Ritter

Sarah is the course coordinator for EDSGN100. She has helped numerous instructors to be able to take an inherently hands on making course and bring it online in a way that the students are still getting a positive project based experience.

Sarah Ritter

She has spearheaded the conversion of EDSGN 100, a course with significant hands-on elements, to an online format, provided resources to the many instructors of the course (> 10), managed the conversion of our make space assistants (MSAs) to still being helpful and productive in this online format. Could not have been done without her.

Sarah Root

One of my professors, Dr. Sarah Root, has definitely stepped up. Not only has she been on top of Canvas, through posting videos using Kaltura (with picture-in-picture), but also by adding the zoom link on canvas, opening discussions for students to ask questions or even just check in, as well as a course-related meme march madness tournament for students to enter. She is my only professor utilizing the discussion feature, and is really putting in a lot of time to make sure everything is running smoothly, and I know how stressful it has been for her.

She has also been flexible with students experiencing difficulties, and is my professor that has been handling the transition the best. In regards to Zoom, she had the set up and ready by 9am on the first Monday of remote-learning, had assigned the TA as co-host, had the room set up so everyone automatically comes muted, had figured out breakout rooms for students to work on problems, use the ""raise hand"" feature to turn over the mic, and just has had it figured out. Teaching is only half of her job, and the other half is advising, for which I don't have her, but with those additional responsibilities, she's really impressed me.

Overall, she has really put in a lot of time and effort to make sure students are feeling comfortable and to make sure everything is running smoothly, and it's been really stressful, so I just wanted to recognize her for all the hard work she has put in to this class and all her other responsibilities in this time of uncertainty.

Sarah Root

Quickly engaged our faculty with online instruction ideas, links and her personal experiences to help us with this transition!

Ling Rothrock

Being an interim department even in the most normal of circumstances is a challenging, relatively thankless job. To have a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic added on top...is hard. Ling has provided steady, competent, encouraging leadership in a time where we are all stretched beyond capacity. He deserves recognition for this. FOR SURE.

Ling Rothrock

Ling has gone out of his way to keep our faculty engaged in this remote meeting environment. He started with having faculty share ideas through emails then formalized our efforts with weekly best-practices faculty and staff meetings so everyone is on the same page using current practices. Ling’s calm, steady approach to this remote teaching transition is a great asset to our department.

Danielle Salerno

Danielle Salerno has been handling this crisis with humor, positivity, and information sharing. Everyday Danielle shares with the OERA team in our TEAM app funny moments she found at home and online, to alleviate the stress of her co-workers. Her positive attitude has made an impact on our team - we are more connected and united than before!

Moreover, Danielle understands the importance of authoritarian inforamtion in crisis like this. She has complied a document library about COVID-19 research related information, including guidance that was distributed by the CDC, Penn State and College of Engineering, various Federal sponsors, as well as links to COVID-19 Funding Opportunities and proposal deadline extensions (as our office is aware of them). This sharepoint site serves as one-stop shop for our faculty for research related COVID-19 information.

Deb Sam

Deb Sam went from not having heard the name 'zoom' to being a zoom-pro within 72 hours. She also transitioned from hand-written notes, and paper copies of documents, to a ~100% digital working environment. It was impressive to watch her resilience and perseverance!

She continued to lift everyone's spirits up during the hard times; and maintained a very positive attitude during the transition to our new norm. Deb Sam is among the most dedicated and hard-working individuals I have ever met. She brings incredible standards to her work! She has been an absolute joy to work with =)

Justin Schwartz

Provides us daily emails, even on the weekends to check in and give us useful information pertaining telecommuting and COVID19.

SEDTAPP Office

I am a new staff member to the SEDTAPP office, my position transferred from the College of EMS to College of Eng right at the start of this remote work. The SEDTAPP staff have been wonderful at getting to know me and work with me via TEAMS. I Feel as if I have been working with them for months and still have not had face to face office function with most of them yet. We have regular ZOOM staff meetings that allow us to share our procedures and thoughts. We have regular staff and faculty zoom meetings so we can all gather and have discussion. Tips are shared to make this remote work situation go smooth and even little humor to keep us all in check during this difficult time. I look forward to getting this Covid-19 tackled so we can get back into the office and I get a chance to work face to face with the SEDTAPP Team. Jaime Ross is our office coordinator. As I feel the entire department deserves kudos, Jaime deserves recognition for keeping the staff team strong and promoting our zoom communication to keep us all up to date and in check during this crazy time. I look forward to working with the entire college as we get back to "normal"

Serena Sidwell

Not only did Serena set up a wonderful virtual farewell party for Mandy Engel-Herbert as she finishes up as Karen Thole's assistant and moves over to IME, she designed a custom Bon Voyage Zoom background for the occasion...COMPLETE WITH MOVEMENT AND ANIMATIONS. I, for one, was most impressed. She deserves an award called the ZOOMIE for literally breaking barriers with Zoom. Serena event work for Mechanical Engineering is exceptionally professional and deserving of recognition. She often goes the extra mile, and puts smiles on our faces while doing so.

Rick Smith

Like many others, when we received the news that we were to begin teleworking, my team and I felt a bit panicked. We had a relatively new staff member that didn’t have her laptop set up with her Penn State credentials. We also had two staff members that did not have a laptop designated to them in CoE at all. Rick acted swiftly to do what he could to ensure my team was fully functional. This required download of systems such as IBIS onto these laptops and ensuring that the VPN was connected. Before the end of that last day in the office, we were set to telecommute. Since transitioning to a virtual platform, I have personally experienced Zoom microphone issues, and “many” occurrences where Outlook has utterly stopped sending/receiving messages. By utilizing the remote desktop connections, Rick was able to connect to my laptop and run all necessary updates/correct any issues. With each occurrence, Rick was quick to respond and acted almost instantaneously. I am very thankful for his assistance, and more importantly his willingness. His positive attitude never goes unnoticed. Like many others, I applaud our IT team!

Pam Stauffer

During this difficult period Pam has gone above and beyond what is expected in her job, which she does exceptionally well. She has been coordinating tasks among our staff of sixteen individuals in EE and helping with activities in the School of EECS, which involves interactions with the CSE department. She has organized regular meetings (via Zoom) twice a week with our entire staff, solving problems and creating camaraderie as they telework. She has also been conducting meetings with smaller groups of staff (for example with those who work on financial tasks, or those who work on HR related tasks, etc.) to get the work done on time and help our faculty and students who are under stress. With all this going on she also managed to get flowers and a card and deliver them (maintaining social distancing) to an EECS staff member who had surgery after breaking her ankle this week. Pam also continues to contribute to the preparation of the COE in the transition to SIMBA.

Kevin Waltz

Kevin has been incredibly helpful during our remote work situation. Any questions that arise, any clarifications required, any help needed is met with an attitude eager to assist!! Kevin has always been helpful!

Ashley WennersHerron and Andrew Krebs

Andrew and Ashley have done an amazing job of handling communications efforts for the Dean's office over the past several weeks including Andrew jumping right in from the start returning from vacation to address the changing situation on campus, coordinating the daily messages from the dean, and working with student support and administrators on writing and communicating the changing needs for all students, including prospective and accepted students who haven't yet been to campus. And I'm sure there are many many other things they've handled that I'm not even aware of.

Tessa Woodring

Tessa is a relatively new employee who continues to excel in every situation. Not only is she beautifully adapting to remote working, she is also a beacon of light--checking in with others and offering to help wherever she can. She's taking on more and more work, and handling the extra pressures with extreme grace. I'm Tessa's supervisor and about to depart on maternity leave--she not only is enthusiastic in her new pandemic-related responsibilities, but she is eagerly pitching in with several of my own responsibilities that will be distributed out.

Jessica Yarnell

Has not skipped a beat moving to remote working. Has spent her days speaking with all the MGOs she supports. Has great knowledge of the database and has become the go to person for questions about reports for development. She is always upbeat and positive - her "can-do" attitude, especially with working remotely, makes her a pleasure to work with.