Staff excellence is celebrated at the Annual Imperial Garden Party
Members of staff who have made outstanding contributions are recognised for their achievements with the President’s Awards
On Tuesday 18th June, Felix was in attendance at the annual Imperial Garden Party, a ceremony to honour staff who have made outstanding contributions to research and academic excellence, public engagement and outreach, teaching and student support, and to Imperial’s culture and community.
Staff members who were shortlisted for the President’s Award for Excellence were invited to attend the ceremony, where winners of the Award would be revealed live. One Award winner from each category would also be presented with the President’s Medal for Excellence, also unveiled on the evening of the event. Students who were awarded Union Awards in the previous academic year were also invited to attend.
The ceremony was hosted in the Great Hall by Imperial President Alice Gast, who gave the opening and closing speeches and presented winning staff with the President’s Awards. Vice Provost (Education) Simone Buitendijk, Vice Provost (Research and Enterprise) Nick Jennings, Associate Provost (Academic Partnerships) Maggie Dallman, and Director of Human Resources and Organisational Change Louise Lindsay each announced the winners from one of four award categories: Societal Engagement, Research, Education, and Culture and Community. A reception was held after the ceremony where refreshments were served and the student acapella group the Techtonics kicked off their set with a lively rendition of Jacob Banks’ 'Chainsmoking'.
Prsident’s Medal winners include Mr Martin Lupton from the Faculty of Medicine for Outstanding Contribution to Teaching Excellence; Professor Lord Robert Winston for Excellence in Societal Engagement; the Department of Medicine Paediatric Infectious Diseases Team for Outstanding Research Team; Dr Alastair Donaldson from the Department of Computing for Excellence in Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
Undergraduate students in the Rural Educational Development (RED) Borneo Project team, from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and postgraduate student Paulina Rowinska from the Department of Mathematics, were awarded the only Student Award of the night – the President’s Student Award for Excellence in Societal Engagement.
Alice Gast thanked their contributions for “making Imperial an exciting place to study, a rewarding place to work, a valued partner, a great neighbour and a beacon of hope for the future.” These outstanding members of our community, she said, “are what makes Imperial the excellent institution it is.”
