Congratulations to the 2021 Crockett Award Winners

Congratulations to Janine Brooks and Nik Stevenson for being awarded the Joyce Crockett Promoting Women in STEM Staff Achievement Award. Please see their bios below for a bit more about these awardees. This award is sponsored by WiSTEM Pro^2 and CCSGE. The awardees are UNO staff members that has significantly contributed or brought attention to issues affecting women in STEM.

Brooks and Stevenson will be presented with their award at the Chancellor's Commission on the Status of Gender Equity Award Celebration, which will be held in April. Please be sure to watch for announcements regarding the awards event.

Janine Brooks

Janine Brooks, an Administrative Assistant in the Department of Chemistry, interacts with students daily. She has shared numerous stories about young women speaking to her about dropping chemistry classes or switching majors. By providing support to these students and listening to their concerns, these students chose to remain in STEM courses and programs. She ensures students are provided a comfortable environment in which to study for their chemistry courses, ensures the tools needed by students are made available in the Chem Library and Majors room, and keeps copies of various textbooks and other supplies in her office for students in need of those items.

She maintains a list of individuals with seating limitations and contacts each student when a seat comes available that will work to their advantage. In the past, she has also made it possible for students who are nursing to have privacy in a conference room for them to lactate. Brooks often proctors exams, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, for individual students whose schedules do not align with a scheduled exam due to childcare and work obligations.

She took over administration of the CAPOW! (Chemistry and Physics on Wheels!) program in 2018, overseeing the scheduling of its outreach program in various locations in Omaha including elementary and middle schools, daycares, public venues, scouting events and summer camps. Brooks has been actively involved in the UNO Chemistry Field Day for high school students, and assisted with Chemistry Magic!—a Girl Scout science outreach program—to promote the interests of girls in STEM programs. In addition, she serves on the UNO Chancellor’s Commission for the Status of Gender Equity (CCSGE) as the chair of the Awards Committee and is an active member of WiSTEM Pro^2.

Nik Stevenson

Nik Stevenson is the Research Technician at the STEM TRAIL Center, where he wears many hats – performing technical writing, program coordination, professional development of out-of-school time staff and undergraduate students, external evaluation, and data collection/analysis. Across roles, Stevenson works to promote equity, access, and inclusion for women in STEM through his mentorship and leadership. He oversees the day-to-day operations of the NE STEM 4U program, which is currently led by two female undergraduate students, mentored by Stevenson in advanced leadership roles as program officers.

Stevenson provides presentations and workshops in a “train the trainer” model approach, consistently emphasizing equity, access, and inclusion to address disparities in factors such as gender and socioeconomic status. He routinely contributes to various grant projects from conception through dissemination, where he works to ensure inclusion of populations that are underrepresented in STEM in a range of programmatic opportunities.

Of particular note, Stevenson recruits such students to receive scholarships via the EMPLOYEE Program at UNO, an NSF S-STEM funded project, with diverse representation of female students from various ethnic backgrounds comprising a majority of the cohorts. His recruitment efforts led to a very diverse candidate pool for S-STEM candidates—including female representation of over 50% and students of various ethnicities, including Native American, LatinX, and African American. In his research efforts, he promotes equity, access, and inclusion to remove disparities due to socioeconomic disadvantages and gender. Stevenson is also a member of the inaugural equity and inclusion certificate program for staff and faculty at UNO.

About the Award

The Crockett Award is named after Joyce Crockett, who served UNO in a variety of ways from her work in Information Services to leadership in both CCSGE and WiSTEM Pro^2 organizations. After 40 years of service, she officially retired in early 2018, but typically attends the luncheon to present this award.