Chloe Wright

Senior Staff Psychologist – CSU Health Network

Dr. Wright joined CSU in 2017 as a doctoral intern, stayed on as a postdoctoral fellow, and is now a Senior Staff Psychologist in the CSU Health Network.  She has a PhD in Counseling Psychology with a Graduate Certificate in Child and Adolescent Psychology from UNC in Greeley.  Dr. Wright contributes to CSU through many official teaching/mentoring roles, as well as other informal roles.  She co-leads efforts to deepen counseling services skill level/commitment to our marginalized students, through co-facilitating both our monthly staff Diversity Dialogues meetings and co-facilitating our weekly Diversity Seminar for counseling trainees.  Dr. Wright employs a variety of methods to help further develop the talents and skills in those around her, from didactic teaching to deeper reflection/processing.  She brings specific attention to intersections of identity, underscoring that it is not possible to separate overlaps of oppression across race, sexuality, gender, socioeconomic status, and ability.

Dr. Wright works tirelessly to brighten the lives of students, staff, and the community at large.  As the pandemic continued, our BIPOC, queer, and trans students faced an incredibly heavy burden, from disparate impacts of COVID and constant trauma of witnessing the violent deaths of many BIPOC individuals. Dr. Wright specifically centers these students in their work, with innovative services and programming for students, regular presentations to staff & colleagues of color, and mentoring of various BIPOC trainees at the CSU Health Network (CSUHN).  Dr. Wright consistently goes above and beyond in their work, both within CSUHN and across campus.

Elaine Kim

IACUC Coordinator – Office of the Vice President of Research

Elaine has been an IACUC Coordinator here at CSU for almost 12 years.  As Senior Coordinator, Elaine is responsible for coordinating and holding meetings for the IACUC to review protocols in accordance with federal regulations, as well as maintaining the animal welfare and use policies for the university.

She also acts as a liaison between the researchers and the IACUC, and between the IACUC and federal agencies like the USDA, and she handles each party with the utmost integrity and respect. As a Certified Professional in IACUC Administration (CIPR), she is highly trained in the regulations governing this research and is active at the local, national, and international level in upholding the ethical and legal use of research animals.

Her reputation and expertise are recognized at the national level, where she has presented at numerous meetings, conferences and has taught several workshops. Most recently, Elaine was on the planning committee for the 2020 IACUC conference for PRIM&R (an international research ethics non-profit with over 25,000 members), where she was the driver behind incorporating DEIJ principles into every facet of the conference. Elaine is a current member of a planning committee with The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that focuses on the issues associated with the unique welfare challenges of conducting research with wildlife.

Elaine is a stalwart advocate and mentor for those she supervises both inside and outside of work. She excels at being a mentor and ensures her mentees are not only succeeding professionally but also, drives to ensure they manage a healthy work-life balance too. Elaine is a strong advocate for maintaining a healthy work-life and is often picking up new hobbies or trying new recipes to share with her colleagues. Elaine is also an active member on the board of her church and her child’s parent teacher organization.

Kim Daggett

Academic Success Coordinator – College of Liberal Arts

Kim has been with the CLA Advising Center for five and a half years as an Academic Success Coordinator and advises for English, Economics, and History Social Studies Teaching. Kim’s advising philosophy is to meet each student where they’re at on their personal and educational journey while pushing them to achieve beyond their comfort zone. She strives to help students find their own voice in their educational experience and learn to advocate for their rights and needs both at and beyond CSU. In all student interactions, she works to make students feel comfortable, heard, and valued, no matter what their situation. Her positive and welcoming attitude is evident in her student feedback. One student shared, “She has been the most kind and caring ASC I could have ever asked for. I absolutely love our meetings, and my favorite part is just the conversations we have. I always leave her office feeling confident and relaxed going into whatever I am doing next.” Another student wrote, “She was always down to earth and spoke with me at the same level. I never felt like she spoke down to me and I felt like I could talk to her like a friend.”

In addition to her commitment to student success, Kim seeks out opportunities to grow in her field and as a student support professional. Kim feels it is her responsibility to model the Principles of Community in all her interactions with students and values her role in helping to promote a culture of integrity and equity. She participated in the Social Justice Leadership Institute and the Creating Inclusive Excellence Program (CIEP) and has attended Dream Zone and Safe Zone trainings. Within the CSU community, Kim strives to strengthen connections with student success offices across campus to better connect students to campus resources.

Outside of work, Kim enjoys giving back to her community. She has worked as a volunteer for the CSU Pets Forever program – an organization that helps elderly and disabled community members keep their pets at home by offering in-home pet care – and she also serves as a volunteer for the City of Fort Collins Natural Areas, Fort Collins Bike Co-op, and Bike Fort Collins.

Lynna Dicamillo

Communications Director – Graduate School

Lynna has been with CSU and the Graduate School for over six years and was instrumental during the pandemic.  Mary Stromberger says, Under Lynna’s leadership, the Graduate School now has a well-executed communications plan that markets graduate programs to prospective students, provides timely communications to students, graduate faculty and staff; and elevates the Graduate School and the reputation of CSU through national communications of our students’ successes. Without her leadership, the Graduate School would have struggled during the pandemic in its ability to serve students and faculty as well as it did. She helped with our transition to working remotely and provided clear communications to our students and graduate faculty so that they were able to access much-needed resources. I appreciate Lynna so much, and she is so deserving of this award!”

Lynna leads efforts to effectively and compassionately share policy updates and new resources with the graduate community. Lynna developed a Graduate School COVID webpage and introduced a new chat function to the website. Lynna promotes a healthy balance by respecting time and energy of collaborators. When scheduling meetings, Lynna uses tools to check availability and works in a timely manner on projects, meeting deadlines. Lynna maintains professional relationships with campus partners, giving plenty of notice for project timelines.

She leads by example, keeping best practices and university guidelines in mind when collaborating with campus partners. Over the last year, Lynna particularly supported CSU’s postdoctoral association in developing an email list serve and webpage. She also supports the Graduate Student Council and other student organizations. These efforts, in turn, support campus-wide AP staff responsible for graduate students and post-doctorates. Lynna advocates for tools and practices that make AP tasks easier and support greater work-life balance.

Mark Paquette

Associate Athletic Director for Facilities – Athletic Department

Mark is CSU’s Associate Athletic Director for Facilities, and he has a tremendous job coordinating all of Athletics’ facilities maintenance, game management and day-to-day operations. In that role he coordinates coaches, athletes, Facilities Management, police, fire, medical, Landmark event management, and other community services. On a football game-day he’s coordinating over 400 people to host upwards of 35,000 fans! He constantly builds support of all these constituents by becoming invested in each one. He goes above and beyond in getting to know people personally and building trust. He’s the first to offer a helping hand, offer a solution to a problem and he’s never satisfied until everyone is happy with the resolution.

In Mark’s time on campus, he has touched an uncountable number of employees, student-workers, and community members. His goal is always to help people thrive and have great experiences with CSU. His leadership and mentoring have fostered a tremendous culture in Athletic Facilities and created amazing partnerships with constituents all across the community and campus. His innovation and creative solutions allow others on Campus to grow and encourages thinking beyond their roles. He’s inclusive of everyone’s ideas and makes each individual feel valued and important. You will not find a better representative of what CSU is or can be than Mark Paquette. He makes CSU a better place for students, staff and our community members.

Matt Markham

Undergraduate Advisor – Mechanical Engineering

After just over two years at Colorado State University, Matt Markham has already had an outsize impact on the Department of Mechanical Engineering (MECH), the Walter Scott, Jr. College of Engineering (WSCOE), and larger CSU community. One of Matt’s biggest strengths is his ability to leverage processes and technology to be more efficient. Matt has spearheaded other administrative efficiency improvements through his continued desire to learn and apply new tools. The list of invaluable tools he has contributed to MECH and beyond is ever growing but includes: mail merge, Live Office Documents, interactive Excel files and PDFs, automated calendar event creation, autogenerated creating and naming of advising files and folders, and accessing CSU’s Operational Data Storage via Structured Query Language (SQL) to run various reports internally. These tools allow Matt and the MECH advisors to spend less time on necessary, but time-consuming, administrative tasks, and more time directly providing individualized support for students’ educational journey.

He connects with the students he advises on a variety of these topics to build rapport and encourage them to find healthful hobbies to find their own school-life integration. He regularly brings in baked goods to share with colleagues and give a moral boost during especially stressful times, like bringing his famous cinnamon roll bread during finals week. Matt is also finals balance by giving back to the larger community by fostering rescue greyhounds with the Colorado Greyhound Adoption, volunteering with the Fort Collins Running Club at races and to co-facilitate a running-focused book club. When colleagues are out of the office, Matt is the first to volunteer to help cover their responsibilities so they can enjoy their time away to the fullest.

Mac Prendergast says, “During [my time as Matt’s advisee] I struggled a lot with personal issues and a lost sense of purposes. Coming into the Mech program Matt was there for me from day one. He is an advisor that listens to his students’ needs and helps them find a path to bring the student the most fulfillment. Matt has given me countless resources both personal and academic that I truly believe helped to get me on course to be successful. Even after leaving the Mech program, Matt has reached out to check in on how I am doing personally… Matt has been and continues to be someone I know I can look towards for guidance in anything.”

Ryan Medhurst

Systems Administrator – Engineering Technology Services

Ryan came to CSU in May of 2004 as an IT client services specialist in the Walter Scott, Jr College of Engineering with Engineering Technology Services (ETS). Ryan is an exceptional and avid learner. He has really created his own professional development over the years through technical reading and tinkering. It is precisely because of this that he became an expert in both the “user support” side of IT and the “systems administration” side. He is able to look ahead to future needs. He embraces challenges and willingly steps up to the plate when asked to take on a new project — often volunteering (or already completed it!) before the ask.

Ryan is often found after hours in the Scott Data Center installing and managing rack-mounted servers comprising Engineering’s entire student Windows Virtual Classroom and Windows Compute Server pool. He is proactive in making these resources the best they can be for the students and goes above and beyond to do so. He was able to save students thousands of dollars by building several GPU servers for their use instead of purchasing the whole machine. He has also helped research groups in the College obtain servers he can repurpose for thousands less than a new one. Ryan does all these things without ever seeking praise or accolades. He has a huge heart and an amazing creativity and hunger for knowledge.