Pitt-Johnstown staff lauded for outstanding service
Two members of the Pitt-Johnstown staff have been recognized for outstanding service.
Dolores Berkey received the President’s Staff Award for excellence in service to Pitt-Johnstown.
Berkey, the executive director of budget management and purchasing, works closely with all departments to ensure efficiency in University operations, and takes the lead to improve budgeting processes on campus.
Mike Bodolosky received the President’s Staff Award for excellence in service to the community.
Bodolosky is executive director of the Pasquerilla Performing Arts Center, which is celebrating its 25th year. He was a driving force behind the creation of The Arts Coalition of the Alleghenies, which brings awareness and appreciation of the arts in the community.
Kellie Kane Promoted to Director of Admissions Position
Kellie Kane, director of operations and strategic planning in the Office of Admissions and Financial Aid (OAFA), has been promoted to director of admissions.
Her promotion is a more formal announcement of the areas she currently oversees: operations, data, projections, the admissions committee and the scholarship committee.
In her new capacity, Kane will sign all of Pitt’s admissions letters.
Marc Harding, chief enrollment officer, stated: “This promotion reflects the changing and important role she plays in the admission and enrollment of undergraduates. We will now have both a director of admissions and a director of financial aid (Randy McCready), which is the norm for an enrollment services office of Pitt’s size and complexity.”
Kane earned both her bachelor’s and MBA degrees from Pitt.
She began working full-time in OAFA in 1999. Since 2012, she has been helping OAFA become a leader in college and university enrollment management services by developing cutting-edge student-centered processes and practices. She is Pitt’s representative to the Association of Chief Admissions Officers at Public Universities, which is largely comprised of admissions directors.
Lauren Russell Wins 2017 Creative Writing Award from the National Endowment for the Arts
Lauren Russell, assistant director of the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for African American Poetry and Poetics, has been awarded a 2017 Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). Through the fellowship — which carries a monetary award of $25,000 — Russell plans to further develop a book-length work, tentatively titled Descent. The book is a hybrid work of poems, lyrical essays, images, and documents based on her family history.
Jeremy Weber to Serve on National Academy of Sciences Committee on National Statistics
Assistant professor in the Graduate School of Public Health Jeremy Weber has been selected to serve on a panel of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on National Statistics.
The purpose of the ad hoc panel is to review, assess, and make recommendations for the National Agricultural Statistics Service and the Economic Research Service, USDA, on effective methods for collecting data and reporting information.
Weber studies the intersection of economics and energy.
William Wagner Named Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors
With 17 patents and more than 40 invention disclosures to his name, University of Pittsburgh professor William Wagner has been named a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI).
According to the NAI, the honor is “the highest professional distinction accorded solely to academic inventors who have demonstrated a prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development, and the welfare of society.”
In addition to serving as director of Pitt’s McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Wagner is a professor of surgery, bioengineering, and chemical engineering. He also serves as chairman of the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society-Americas, deputy director of the NSF Engineering Research Center for Revolutionizing Metallic Biomaterials, and chief scientific officer of the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine. Wagner is the third Pitt faculty member to be named an NAI Fellow.
Geovette Washington Named Senior Vice Chancellor and Chief Legal Officer
The University of Pittsburgh Board of Trustees unanimously elected Geovette E. Washington as Pitt’s senior vice chancellor and chief legal officer. In this capacity, Washington will also serve as an officer of the University.