Arrival
Eva Cheung
Graphic Designer and Print Operator
Eva Cheung joined the Department on October 31, 2022. She is a graphic designer with a decade of print industry knowledge, and promotional and informational design for print and digital media. Eva brings a wealth of graphics experience ranging from designing print and digital artwork, to developing assets for blogs, e-banners, e-signatures, brochures, newsletters, website, and social media. She provides her graphic arts and print production expertise to the Department. This includes the use of computer-aided tools to produce quality slides, posters, brochures, branding, illustrations and exhibit displays.
Arrival
Supreet Randhawa
Outreach, Facilities and Special Projects Coordinator
Supreet joined the Department on January 30, 2023. She joins us from the Department of Mathematics with five years of experience in administrative and outreach positions. Supreet is passionate about youth education and her role in connecting pre-university students to the Department of Physics.
Arrival
Jean Xu
Physics Finance, Purchasing and MasterCard Program Administrator
Jean joined the Department on February 1, 2023, as the Finance, Purchasing and MasterCard Program Administrator. Jean previously worked in the Department of Molecular Genetics in the Faculty of Medicine as the Financial and Administrative Assistant, with a broad range of administrative responsibilities including procurement. She is very happy to join the Department and to be working with the staff, faculty, and students to promote education and research.
Arrival
Diane Nguyen
Research Grants and Finance Assistant
Diane joined the Department on February 1, 2023. She came from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), where she worked for a number of years as Administrative Coordinator. She was working closely with professors on a wide range of administrative and financial aspects of research operations. Prior to ECE, she worked in the government and non-profit sector in the capacity of grant-finance manager, looking after proposals, screening and budget planning and administrative operation. Her extensive of experience, skills and knowledge in finance and administration has prepared Diane well for her position at the Department of Physics.
Departure
Aloma Namasivayam
With both joy and sadness, we announce the retirement of our esteemed colleague and long-standing Finance and Purchasing Administrator, Aloma Namasivayam. After 31 years of dedicated service to the Department of Physics at the University of Toronto, Aloma has decided to embark on a new chapter in her life and retire.
Aloma has been a valuable asset to our Department, consistently demonstrating her unwavering commitment to excellence in her work. Her knowledge and expertise in financial and procurement administration have been invaluable to the Department, making her an essential member of our team. Her attention to detail and passion for her work has earned her the trust and respect of all those who have worked with her.
Over the years, Aloma has become an integral part of the University community, building strong relationships with her colleagues, faculty, students, and vendors. Her friendly and supportive demeanour has earned her the appreciation and admiration of all those who have had the pleasure of working with her.
As Aloma embarks on this exciting new journey, we extend our heartfelt congratulations and best wishes to her. We will miss her energy, dedication, and enthusiasm, but we are confident that her retirement will be filled with new adventures, happiness, and fulfilment. Please join us in wishing Aloma a happy and fulfilling retirement.
By Michael Manley, Manager, Finance and HR Administration
Departure
Lisa Jefferson
Lisa Jefferson was a central figure in the financial administration of the Department for almost 20 years. She started working at U of T much earlier, in 1989 at OISE, then moved on to spend six years at the University of Toronto Schools before joining the Department of Physics in 2004 to take on the role of Research Grants and Finance Assistant.
For the next 20 years, she was indispensable in our financial office, always keeping a few steps ahead of PI’s in grant administration, flagging problematic issues, making sure people met their deadlines and generally smoothing the way through the rules and regulations that would otherwise overwhelm us, all with her characteristic calm, efficiency and good humour.
A number of years ago when I was Chair, Lisa was the recipient of an administrative staff award recognizing her work. Maybe it was a particularly brutal year for grant requirements, but there was a flood of nominations for Lisa. Virtually all of the faculty nominations described how, with her characteristic calmness, thoroughness and forward-thinking, Lisa had saved the nominator from near-certain financial catastrophe. She was described as “tremendous … helpful … diligent … indispensable … resourceful … unfailingly helpful and creative … patient … accommodating” and with “tireless energy” and “good humour”. Lisa’s nominators not only praised her ability to solve problems, but more importantly, her ability to recognize an issue four months in advance and deal with it before it became a problem. As one of her nominators said, the Physics Department is exceptionally lucky to have her.
We were indeed very lucky to have Lisa, and we wish her the very best for her retirement.
By Professor Michael Luke
Departure
Sheela Manek
When Sheela arrived in the Physics Department in Spring 2014, few knew the many roles she would play, some official, but many she created herself. With her ideas, skills, and enthusiasm, the Physics Department became a leader in Arts & Science outreach, and she also took care of many other Physics special events and quickly responded to the many maintenance issues associated with our geriatric building. It is impossible to list everything she did, especially since so much of her work was done so invisibly that we were not even aware of it. Many of us have been saved from a tricky situation by Sheela’s forethought and great organization.
Sheela was the Physics Department’s primary contact for everything outreach: high school visits, Science Rendezvous, Alumni Reunion, Doors Open, Science Unlimited Summer Camp, undergraduate mentorship, public lectures, …. Sheela kept track of and managed all the organizational details: publicity, volunteers, scheduling, food, photos, Instagram, Zoom, …. She did this all with invariable enthusiasm, optimism, and good cheer, so working with her was always a joy.
Sheela was also the person to call whenever anything went wrong or needed fixing: if your office is freezing or boiling – contact Sheela; if water is pouring through your lab ceiling – contact Sheela; if a window or door or sink is broken – contact Sheela. She even saved the University network services from crashing by banging on their door to let them know their computer room was flooding and leaking down into the Physics undergraduate labs.
Another great thing about working with Sheela was that she never cringed if someone proposed something new. Professors are creative and regularly come up with ideas which are often weird, occasionally good, but almost always make work for someone else. Sheela never complained but instead always happily tried to figure out how to make it happen.
Even more importantly, Sheela didn’t just manage and administrate, she innovated. She was constantly thinking about how our Outreach could be improved, making suggestions, and coming up with new ideas. None of us would have thought of being part of Toronto Doors Open, Canada’s largest public architectural festival, but Sheela made the connection. This has now become our largest annual outreach event, with over 1800 visitors to the McLennan Physics Building in a single weekend. Sheela was a driving force.
This also illustrates Sheela’s great skill in creating relationships. She regularly reached out to other science and math departments to partner in outreach activities.
While working on her Higher Education Leadership M.Ed. at OISE, she made the crucial contact that eventually led to the creation of the Pursue STEM program for Black high school students. One of Sheela’s priorities was outreach to groups that are traditionally underrepresented in Physics, in particular Black and Indigenous youth. She knew that Physics could not do this on our own – we needed a strong community partner so Sheela took the initiative to reach out to a wide variety of groups. Making connections and building trust takes time, and finally in 2020, Physics partnered with the Lifelong Leadership Institute, whose Leadership By Design program turned out to be a perfect match for our goals. In short order, Physics developed the Pursue STEM initiative that currently provides activities for over almost 70 high-achieving Black high school students. Aside from organizing and administering the program, Sheela was key in securing funding from the Provost’s Office.
It can’t be overemphasized how critical it was for Outreach to have Sheela’s ability to track and manage so much. For example, just Pursue STEM involved eight university departments, volunteers from all those departments, university recruitment, our community partner, three graduate student facilitators and a coordinator, and the Canadian Black Scientist Network. Sheela was the person who “kept all the balls in the air.”
Sheela was also the key person in involving Physics graduate and undergraduate students in both our own activities and other outreach programs we support, enriching the lives of both our students and the school students in these programs. Few of our programs could happen without student volunteers, and Sheela worked with our Physics Graduate Student Association, our undergraduate Physics Student Union, and many individual students.
During the pandemic, Sheela still kept everything running remotely from a few hours outside Toronto. Unfortunately for the Physics Department, she also realized she enjoyed living outside Toronto, both up north and down south in Jamaica.
We will all miss her awesome competence, sunny disposition, and - not least of all - her home-made cookies. We wish her excellent scuba diving, wonderful travels, and a great future.
By Professor David Bailey, with inspiration from Professor John Sipe, Professor Stephen Morris, Professor Jason Harlow, Professor David Curtin, and Greg Wu (Staff).
