From Plant Press, Vol. 24, No. 2, April 2021.
The National Museum of Natural History presented the 2020 Peer Recognition Awards on January 28, 2021. Award recipients are individuals and teams who have given their time and talent to the museum above and beyond what their jobs call for, and to those who have done something that makes a difference in the outside community, for the museum, or for the larger Smithsonian community. The Peer Recognition Award Committee is composed of 10 Museum staff members representing a cross-section of the entire museum community.
Twelve awards were presented during the online Zoom ceremony, hosted by Kirk Johnson (Sant Director of the National Museum of Natural History) and Bob Corrigan (Office of the Deputy Director). Two members of the Department of Botany were proud recipients of 2020 Peer Recognition Awards.
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The Treasurer and Secretary Team Award
Serving as the treasurer of the Senate of Scientists (SOS) for the last six years and secretary for the last seven, Gary Krupnick (Department of Botany) and Briana Pobiner (Department of Anthropology), respectively, have gone above and beyond even their volunteer SOS duties in the last year. The Senate’s activities—from business meetings to lightning talks and dinner forums—run as smoothly as they do because of the dedication and efficiency of these two colleagues. Keeping vital channels of communication flowing, handling countless details, and transitioning to online activities are only some of the challenges that they have made look easy. The Senate and the museum community has benefited greatly from their leadership and dedication.
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The Digitization Hero Award
Since the museum’s closure in March 2020, Sue Lutz (Department of Botany) has had the enormous responsibility of completing most necessary Botany Collection work that must be done in the building. In addition to ensuring the safety of the collections and keeping up with tasks normally assigned to everyone, she volunteered to continue prepping specimen folders for the mass digitization conveyor belt project. The project had been up and running since July but was slowly running out of prepared material to image. Because of her efforts the project will be able to continue on schedule to the delight of botanists and researchers around the globe.
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