November 26, 2014

Joanne O. Lee, student services manager for the Gillings School’s Department of Nutrition, has been selected as the 2014 winner of the School’s Staff Excellence Award. Lee accepted the award at a Schoolwide reception on Nov. 13.

Joanne Lee (left) accepts the School's Staff Excellence Award from Dr. Beth Mayer-Davis, nutrition chair.

Joanne Lee (left) accepts the School’s Staff Excellence Award from Dr. Beth Mayer-Davis, nutrition chair.

In her work, Lee oversees admissions, registration for enrolled students, records management, student funding, class scheduling, placement, counseling and alumni activities. She joined the nutrition department in 1996 as an administrative assistant to Dr. Steven Zeisel, then department chair. She was promoted to student services manager in 2000, and has served as the nutrition department’s liaison with prospective, current and former students since then.

“We received an overwhelming outpouring of congratulations when the award was announced to students,” said Elizabeth Mayer-Davis, PhD, professor and chair of nutrition, “and it is the students who say it best – Joanne’s level of commitment and motivation is truly a model for the Gillings School. She is tireless, always smiling, often working nights and weekends, and she has helped 977 students feel like they are home while they are in the program. Our department is exceedingly proud and humbled to have had her setting the bar for almost 19 years.”

One of those students, in the Master of Public Health/Registered Dietitian program, recalls that Lee was the first person she met when she arrived at the Gillings School.

“Her welcoming smile was the perfect start to my graduate education here at UNC,” the student said. “Joanne is one of the sincerest people I’ve met, and her dedication to helping students is unsurpassed.”

Lee says that she feels “blessed and honored” to have been recognized with the award and that she has enjoyed working with many distinguished professors, devoted staff members, and more importantly, mentoring close to 1,000 undergraduates and graduate students, who she considers part of her extended family.

“I am amazed at the love and support that students have shown me over the years,” she said. “I love helping and mentoring current students, but I also love staying in touch with our alums. Watching them achieve their dreams, graduate, and become successful in the field of public health is the result of the dedication of everyone in the nutrition department.”

The annual award, first presented in 1991, recognizes permanent employees of the School whose work demonstrates impact and a focus on the core values of the School, as reflected through the awardee’s attention to diversity and inclusion, innovation, personal integrity, measuring and improving of work processes, adaptability and flexibility, accountability, collaboration and initiative.

Learn more about the Staff Excellence Award.


Gillings School of Global Public Health contact: David Pesci, director of communications, (919) 962-2600 or dpesci@unc.edu.
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