At the department annual meeting in June, we honored several members of our faculty and staff who have contributed in various ways to the success of our department. A big congratulations to each of them!

Exceptional Professional Staff Award:
Colleen Himes
The Exceptional Professional Staff Award honors and celebrates the valuable efforts a professional staff member makes toward supporting the mission of the department. The award recognizes individuals for their overall dedication and service and for upholding our core values of collaboration, continuous learning and mentorship, and integrity and accountability. This year’s Exceptional Professional Staff Award went to Colleen Himes, Online Tools and Web Developer for the Operations and IT Team. This excerpt from her nomination packet gives a hint at her exceptional service:

“Colleen is consistently responsive to our requests for help and tackles complex projects with ease – or at least she makes it seem that way! She consistently delivers high-quality results for our programs, demonstrates exceptional problem-solving abilities, and does all of this with a positive attitude, and a fun and collaborative style.”

Exceptional Classified Staff Award:
Carolina Ibarra
The Exceptional Classified Staff Award honors and celebrates the valuable efforts a classified staff member makes toward supporting the mission of the department. The award recognizes individuals for their overall dedication and service and for upholding our core values of collaboration, continuous learning and mentorship, and integrity and accountability. This year’s Exceptional Classified Staff Award went to Carolina Ibarra, Research Study Assistant with Trauma Recovery & Resilience Innovations (TRI). This excerpt from their nomination packet gives a hint at Carolina’s exceptional service:

“Carolina is skilled at understanding what needs to be done and doing it accurately, efficiently, and without fuss. No matter what, she seems totally immune to being overwhelmed or stressed. Instead, she’s enthusiastic about the opportunity to learn something new and then pass it along to others. She’s also highly collaborative. Even when her workload is heavier, she’s always the first to volunteer to help someone else, and the quality of her work never suffers.”

Exceptional Team Staff Award:
Center for Suicide Prevention and Recovery (CSPAR)
The Exceptional Team Award was born from the recognition that we have an incredible number of effective teams that support our work and that no one person acts in isolation. The winner of this year’s Exceptional Team Award is the Center for Suicide Prevention and Recovery team. Members include Ignatius Balinbin; Natalie Crouch; Anna Evanson; Amanda Kerbrat, MSW; Lucas O’Bryan; Juliann Salisbury, MSW; Payton Smythe; and Barbara Wright.

An excerpt from their nomination, written by Kate Comtois, PhD, says, “Each of my staff has been faced with disruption, new working relationships, the tedium of learning, tracking, and chasing down administrative tasks in the new UW system, and myriad other changes both good and bad. Despite this, they have been ever positive and productive – meeting and exceeding challenges, supporting each other, coming together for our weekly lunches, bringing hilarity to meetings when we needed it most, and generally being fun and smart as a whip at the same time.”

Salaried Clinical Pathway Outstanding Mentor Award
Mark Snowden, MD, MPH
The Salaried Clinical Pathway Outstanding Mentor Award recognizes a faculty member who has done an outstanding job mentoring and furthering the careers of salaried clinical faculty members (e.g., mentoring about developing clinical expertise, achieving regional and national recognition, developing and leading clinical programs, or how to be promoted in this pathway). The winner of this year’s award is Mark Snowden, MD, MPH, the Chief of Psychiatry at Harborview Medical Center. This excerpt from Mark’s nomination packet gives a hint at his exceptional mentorship:

“Mark’s ability to encourage others warmly while holding firm boundaries to facilitate a robust pathway moving forward is a role model. Mark’s mentorship is beyond career advice. It is leadership by example.”

Outstanding Clinician Teacher Junior Faculty Award
Jennifer Erickson, DO, FAPA
The Outstanding Clinician Teacher Junior Faculty Award recognizes an outstanding clinician teacher faculty member at the Assistant Professor level for excellence in teaching, curriculum development, educational scholarship, and/or educational administration. This year’s winner is Assistant Professor Jennifer Erickson, DO, FAPA, and this excerpt from her nomination packet gives a hint at her impact as a teacher and clinician:

“Dr. Erickson has made a major impact as a teacher across multiple educational programs in our department. She is an outstanding clinician educator…who possesses an uncommon and broad skillset.”

Gary J. Tucher Career Teaching Award
Suzanne Murray, MD
The Gary J. Tucker Career Teaching Award, named in honor of the Chair of our department from 1985 through 1997, recognizes exceptional career achievement in teaching and education and honors Dr. Tucker’s significant contributions to our academic programs, his leadership and dedication as a teacher, clinician, and scholar, his love of teaching, and his ability to inspire and encourage trainees. We give this award to a member of the academic or clinical faculty who has demonstrated, throughout their career, outstanding skills as a teacher and dedication to education. This year, Associate Professor Suzanne Murray, MD, received this award.

Wayne J. Katon Outstanding Mentor Award
Andy Saxon, MD
The Wayne J. Katon Outstanding Mentor Award recognizes a faculty member who has demonstrated a sustained commitment to fostering the creative, scholarly, professional and personal development of their mentees. The 2024 recipient is Andy Saxon, MD, Director of the Center for Excellence in Substance Abuse Treatment and Education. This excerpt from Andy’s nomination gives a hint at his exceptional mentorship:

“It is hard to overstate the impact that Dr. Saxon has had on training and mentoring the current and future workforce of addiction providers in the state of Washington and around the country.”