A University of Nottingham technician is celebrating success after being honoured at the Times Higher Education Awards 2024, which highlight the outstanding achievements of universities across the UK and Ireland.
Jodie Chatfield, technical services manager in the university’s School of Life Sciences, picked up Technician of the Year at last night’s awards ceremony, which is awarded to an individual whose exceptional practical skills, commitment and vision have enabled the highest quality teaching, research or knowledge transfer.
The award recognised Jodie’s outstanding contribution to technical careers and neurodiversity, with the judges praising her open and collaborative ethos, which is exemplified by her work supporting neurodivergent colleagues and sharing good practice.
Following the award ceremony, Jodie said: “It was an honour just to be shortlisted alongside fellow technicians from across the sector, so to win the award is incredible. I am lucky enough to work within a team and with colleagues across the university who continually support me and the work that I do.”
Professor Katherine Linehan, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for People and Culture at the University of Nottingham, said:
“Huge congratulations to Jodie on her well-deserved win, we are so proud of what she has achieved. Universities need more people like Jodie, who are not only passionate about their job but committed to inclusivity and supporting people to being their authentic selves in the workplace, which is at the core of fostering talent and achieving excellence.”
In a career spanning almost 30 years, Jodie has advanced from an apprentice to Head of Technical Services and her dedication has transformed the more than 100 technicians in the school to a cohesive team fostering excellent performance with constant opportunities for career development.
Her contribution extends to playing a crucial role in university level committees, including, the Technical Managers Committee, where Jodie leads the University Technician Commitment strategy supporting staff to achieve professional registration and Advance HE status. Her work with neurodivergent staff developed from one individual, to developing University wide systems of support and increasing awareness of training needs. Through MI TALENT she expanded this nationally, to enable the sector to learn from this established good practice. For this she was awarded a Vice-Chancellor’s award from the University of Nottingham in 2023.
The Technician of the Year award was sponsored by Technician Commitment, a university and research institution initiative, led by a steering board of sector bodies, hosted by the UK Institute for Technical Skills & Strategy, which aims to ensure visibility, recognition, career development and sustainability for technicians working in higher education and research, across all disciplines.
Technician Commitment recently published a feature on Jodie, alongside the other shortlisted nominees. Jodie also authored a short article published in THE Campus calling for increased professional recognition of teaching technicians.
The University of Nottingham was shortlisted in three other categories at last night’s ceremony, which also celebrated 20 years of the Times Higher Awards:
- Outstanding Contribution to the Local Community (alongside Nottingham Trent University and in collaboration with Nottingham City Council) for the Student Living Strategy, which aligns civic partners on a strategy to manage and plan student living arrangements for the benefit of both students and longer-term residents.
- Library Team of the Year for UoN Libraries, which has developed a sector-leading approach to digital accessibility which has included adopting new technologies to effectively meet the needs of users and establishing a dedicated Digital Accessibility Team to provide proactive advice and guidance across the institution, via a package of training, resources and support for a Community of Practice.
Research Project of the Year: Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences for the Slavery from Space: Using Satellites for Human Rights and Sustainable Development project led by the Rights Lab which has looked at whether remote-sensing satellites can detect exploitation of people at locations around the world including India’s brick kilns a vast, under regulated sector that is rarely assessed for environmental impact and exploitation scale.
Posted on 29 November 2024
