CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Fifteen academic professionals and civil service staff members received the Chancellor’s Staff Excellence Award recognizing exceptional performance at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. A CSEA committee recommends finalists, who are approved by Illinois Chancellor Charles L. Isbell, Jr. Each awardee receives $1,500 and a commemorative award.
Staff members received awards in each of the eight functional categories. The 2026 honorees, as described by their nominators:
Administrative and Public Engagement
Qu Kim, the executive director of facilities, planning and construction at The Grainger College of Engineering, manages more than $400 million in projects annually and oversees 2.2 million square feet of space over more than 65 buildings, which is used by 16,000 students, 600 faculty and 1,000 staff members.
He is key to navigating multifaceted design and renovation projects. Kim leads energy conservation initiatives, including recent electrical retrofits and a geothermal field project, which attained certification for green energy use and advanced campus energy goals. By introducing a new customer-oriented service model, he has set a benchmark for operational excellence and collaborative service delivery.
He mentors staff through an open-door policy, regular meetings and constructive feedback. He has implemented processes that help the team adapt to changing priorities, providing transparent communication and coaching to maintain high performance.
Deborah Miller serves as the director of clinical partnerships and translation at the Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Institute. In her role, she collaborates with the Mayo Clinic & Illinois Alliance for Technology-based Healthcare and Carle Health. She has a long-term vision for bringing faculty, students and institutions together to accomplish the grand challenges in health and health care.
Because of her emotional intelligence and empathy, Miller works with teams to address and overcome any bottlenecks and challenges in a project. She has the ability to realize and consider the perspectives that all others bring to discussions.
She works in a highly technical field where the vocabulary and concepts change rapidly, yet she manages to stay conversant in the topics so she can help reach the final goals. Notably, she proactively identified mutual strengths with IHSI’s partners and brought individuals together to brainstorm ideas that resulted in a major federal contract. She actively seeks out additional partners and new ways to collaborate.
Clerical Administrative Support
Lisa Kelly, an administrative aide in natural resources and environmental sciences, takes on new duties when there are changes in the unit, ensuring that things run smoothly. She offers her editing and writing skills to students, providing advice on formatting their theses, and to faculty members, advising them on how to format their tenure portfolios.
She spearheads the social media effort for the department and curates the website, making an effort to represent the entire unit. She also assists in the production of a newsletter that connects current and former unit members.
She fosters a culture of continuous learning by seeking out constructive criticism about her performance and department events that she organizes. She has helped in the hiring and training of other office staff and in overhauling several processes in the office that are more efficient because of her input. She makes everyone feel welcome and supports new department members.
As an office support specialist in the Siebel School of Computing and Data Science, Allison Mette takes on many roles to help support the school. She created an administrative support manual that details many processes for support staff. She learns new skills that not only allow her to do her job well but also help with the efficiency of the entire unit.
She leads the area support team and supports co-workers by offering thoughtful guidance, constructive feedback and encouragement. She is willing to share knowledge and mentor others. To increase understanding and dialogue between faculty, staff and students, Mette recently created a presentation that will be shared at the faculty retreat.
She manages a high volume of responsibilities including faculty support, event coordination, purchasing and student interactions. She has worked with a number of departments across campus on multidisciplinary programs that the school offers and she provides support to many external visitors and speakers.
Crafts and Trades
Doug Klemme, a plumber sub-foreperson in University Housing, cultivates positive relationships with his customers — in particular, the residents at Beckwith Residential Community. When these residents with physical disabilities move into new apartments, Klemme has been known to assist them on his own time.
He stays up to date on plumbing codes and best practices of the plumbing industry, making suggestions on sustainability and how new practices might impact students. He led the way in the implementation of electronic work orders, creating buy-in from various trade groups by touting the efficacy and sustainability of the new system. He also helped implement a system that uses postconsumer waste in campus dining halls to create energy and reduce the university’s carbon footprint.
He helps University Housing residents at any time of the day or night and takes emergency calls when no one else is available, even on Christmas Day.
Education/Extension/CITL
As a media communications manager for the 4-H program in University of Illinois Extension, Carissa Nelson delivers marketing and communications statewide. She was instrumental in rebuilding the Illinois 4-H website, which reaches more than 75,000 users. One of her duties includes maintaining an Illinois 4-H Marketing guide that all 4-H staff use in their day-to-day work.
She provides communications support to staff across 102 counties in Illinois, offering personalized coaching, technical help and brand guidance. She created an onboarding process that helps new employees feel welcomed, supported and confident in their roles. She has provided professional media training for Illinois teens and many of the publications she produces have been used by 4-H programs in other states.
Her project management skills allow her to identify inefficiencies and design improved systems that help Extension work better.
Mynda Tracy, a 4-H development educator at the University of Illinois Extension, works in Champaign and the surrounding areas with youth enrolled in 4-H programs as well as adult leaders and volunteers for those programs. Her work ensures that youth across the entire state have access to credentialing programs that prepare noncollege-bound youth in underserved communities for careers.
She certifies local high school teachers and 4-H staff as food handling and certified food protection manager course instructors. These programs have helped the schools expand their culinary programs and provided youth with wider career choices.
She has taken existing programs and initiatives and determined how to maximize them to provide additional opportunities. Tracy has been the driving force that helped the College of ACES offer its first-ever dual-credit course in food management and safety.
She has an instinct for identifying emerging needs long before others recognize them. She is able to build relationships with school districts, community partners and campus leadership to design programs that address real access challenges.
Information Technology
For more than 35 years, Kathryn Courtney has been improving the student experience through innovation and analysis of data.
As the director for system development and support for Student Affairs Technology, she directed the team that increased the use of the i-Card, including in the University Housing dining halls. As the director of business innovation strategy for the Smart, Healthy Communities Initiative, she helped create the Illinois app, which is now used by more than 30,000 students and staff each month.
Courtney has made it a priority to ensure all students can easily access support and find help in moments of crisis. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she led the technology development team in the creation of an application that McKinley Health Center and University Housing used to keep the campus community safe and healthy.
Additionally, she was instrumental in researching the history of staff and alumni from underrepresented populations, which resulted in the naming of Bousfield, Nugent and Wassaja residence halls.
Debra J. Fligor began working in information technology at Illinois as a student and was part of the team that first connected the university to the internet. For the past three decades she has held virtually every role within campus networking. She currently is the assistant director for network services at Technology Services.
She has been instrumental in designing, implementing and maintaining multiple generations of the campus network, always anticipating future needs while working within real-world constraints. She led a major core network upgrade that moved the campus from 10G to 40G backbone links in anticipation of the future needs for discovery and learning on campus.
Under her leadership Illinois has become a recognized pioneer in next-generation networking.
She invests in her colleagues and always finds time to help and mentor new employees as well as foster collaborations that ensure that the infrastructure can support future federally sponsored grants and research initiatives.
Research
Krista Gray, the archival program officer for the Illinois History and Lincoln Collections, is also currently managing the Central Illinois Jewish Communities Archives. She launched an oral history program documenting a wide array of Jewish communities across central Illinois, setting a model for donor engagement and collection building that reinforces the IHLC as a trustworthy steward of historical resources.
Gray was critical in the migration of collection descriptions to a new system. Likewise, her leadership and technical skills have expanded the use of software to support circulation and digitization of special collections materials. She also played a pivotal technical role in the university’s accessibility and inclusion goals, allowing scholars access to important materials.
She has been instrumental in developing plans for the Archives and Special Collections building, helping design the shelving layout for the more than 500,000 rare books and millions of archival records. She provides mentorship to undergraduate and graduate student workers, ensuring that they have hands-on experiences in archives and special collections tasks.
Alvaro Hernandez started at the Roy J. Carver Biotechnology Center as a postdoctoral researcher and has risen through the ranks to the director of DNA services. As the field grows and new technologies emerge, Hernandez works with leadership to ensure that the center is at the forefront of research.
Since genomics sequencing is a relatively new field, he has been responsible not only for teaching himself but also imparting his knowledge to others. He is available to everyone on his team to answer any questions. Investigators from around the world seek out the facility because of the quality, reliability and innovation that define the work produced there.
His technical wizardry results in quality data sets and ensures that the lab remains up to date as he anticipates what is coming next. He organizes team-building activities and has implemented automation to some repetitive tasks, allowing his team to have time to think about and plan for the future of the lab.
Service and Maintenance
As a records information management specialist in Facilities & Services, Beth Leitz impacts every person that occupies, maintains, designs and constructs facilities at the university by curating and assisting in finding information related to those facilities.
She developed a facilities records management system accessible to the entire F&S team and included a file system to store and retrieve thousands of scanned documents along with searchable reference indexes. She created tutorials for file navigation and a “Frequently Used Resources” guide so all F&S employees can find building information when they need it. She has also worked with information technology staff to make collaborating with other campus units easier to accomplish.
She provides outstanding support to both internal and external customers. Her extensive knowledge of campus and facilities make her an invaluable resource to project managers, F&S tradespeople, departmental personnel and other stakeholders.
Joey Rice, an equipment service supervisor for Facilities & Services, plays a behind the scenes role in the inventory, maintenance and repair of more than 1,500 pieces of janitorial equipment critical to daily campus operations. He has developed systems for tracking inventory and streamlining operations in order to save departmental resources and prevent disruptions to campus services.
He is committed to expanding his technical knowledge related to equipment maintenance and system functionality. He regularly assists supervisors and building service workers by troubleshooting equipment issues, explaining proper use and offering guidance or preventative maintenance practices, ensuring that equipment remains safe, functional and reliable.
He leads the campuswide dispenser replacement initiative, which requires careful planning, coordination and adaptability. His work ensures that building service workers have the tools they need to perform effectively, with minimal interruptions in a safe and welcoming campus environment.
Student Services
For more than 20 years, Mari Anne Brocker Curry has successfully cultivated partnerships across campus and within the broader community.
She was a member of the team that created the Beckwith Residential Services program with Disability Resources and Education Services in Nugent Hall, the first of its kind in the U.S. and a model of residential space for students with severe disabilities.
In her current role as the director of housing information and marketing for University Housing, she has transformed the unit into a highly organized, analytics-focused team committed to clear, timely, student-centered communication. She has improved engagement, reduced confusion during peak periods and enhanced the overall student experience.
She manages the Private Certified Housing program. a group of off-campus properties (residence halls and Greek houses) that meet university standards in providing housing for first-year students. Brocker Curry navigates, negotiates and collaborates with partners to meet certified housing standards.
The director of family and graduate housing Jeanette Weider balances residents’ needs for affordable housing with University Housing’s desire for healthy occupancy. She recognizes the unique needs of graduate students, international residents and student parents, who navigate rigorous academic expectations along with the demands of family life, cultural transitions and financial pressures.
Weider is able to blend compassion, operational excellence and strategic vision. She has led efforts to establish an apartment renovation plan, which included adding ADA accessible options. She was instrumental in securing funding for the renovation of the Orchard Downs Community Center. Over 90% of residents in University Housing apartments return due to her care and commitment to her clients. Her forward-thinking approach includes addressing deferred maintenance and strengthening emergency preparedness.
She collaborates with campus and community partners, resulting in access to programs and services that enhance residents’ experiences. She has mentored countless employees and has provided stabilizing leadership.
