The Beckman Institute recognized two community members during its annual April celebration of Arnold Beckman’s birth.
Microscopist and Outreach Specialist T Josek won the Staff Spirit and Dedication Award; Professor Jonathan V. Sweedler won the Vision and Spirit Award.
The staff award celebrates a staff member who embodies the mission and core values of the Beckman Institute and demonstrate teamwork.
The Vision and Spirit Award honors Beckman Institute Founder Arnold Beckman by recognizing a faculty member who has fostered collaboration in their research and exemplifies his vision. Beckman and his wife, Mabel, gave $40 million to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in the 1980s to create the Beckman Institute.
Director Steve Maren gave the awards Thursday, April 10. It marked the 125th anniversary of Beckman’s birth. The institute also celebrated with cupcakes.
The winners shared their thoughts on the honor.
T Josek, microscopist and outreach specialist
Josek has been working at Beckman since 2022. They began teaching users how to use electron microscopes and how to image samples. They’ve also taken on more outreach work in collaboration with the Beckman Communications office and were recently promoted. When pursuing a master’s degree and Ph.D. in entomology, Josek also used Beckman’s Microscopy Suite to conduct research.
What does it mean to you to win this award?
Receiving this award means the world to me. I’m honored that my peers took the time to nominate me, and I’m humbled that I was selected. It’s validating to know that my community feels that I’m doing the right things here at Beckman and that my efforts haven’t gone unnoticed. I hope to keep pushing forward and doing what I can to embrace teamwork as well as the mission and core values at Beckman.
This award highlights a team player. How has teamwork helped you accomplish something in your job at Beckman?
Teamwork has been an integral part of bridging the microscopy suite, Beckman outreach and Beckman communications. We work together to show different classrooms (both within the university and K-12 classrooms outside the university) how research is done in the Microscopy Suite. We then further discuss these events/experiences and share out to the broader community. I’ve really enjoyed having kids (and adults) see the different ways you can image a sample (usually a bug) and take that information to answer questions, come up with new ideas and eventually share them.
What do you like best about working at the Beckman Institute?
The community. I really love the people I have been able to meet and work with here at Beckman. There are so many people here who have brilliant ideas and are supportive of others’ ambitions. It’s amazing to know that sometimes just by going to coffee hour, I can get help from experts outside of my field, find new music to listen to, start a new collaborative project, learn about others’ passions and occasionally…find new, whole-some material for my stand-up sets.
This article was condensed to feature Entomology Alumn T. Josek