Certificates and award money for the best employees of the year were handed out during the department's 2014 Christmas coffee. The categories included senior and junior good teacher, senior and junior good researcher, and employee of the year. The awards went to:
Employee of the year: University Instructor Tiina Niklander
Tiina has worked for many years as the application coordinator for the international specialisation programmes, as well as received many thanks from foreign students for her work as Masters’ tutor. It is especially her work to promote the feeling of community and wellbeing at the department that is remarkable, including her long-time post as chair of the wellbeing-at-work committee. Furthermore, Tiina has been an active participant in various union jobs, and she has been elected for the post of primary union representative for JUKO ry, the negotiation organisation for educated public servants.
Senior good researcher: Academy Fellow Arto Klami
Arto is the head of the Multi-source Probabilistic Inference research group at the department, which group also belongs to HIIT, the collaboration between the University of Helsinki and Aalto University, and to COIN, a national centre of excellence. During the years 2012-2014, Arto has published 11 international refereed articles in top scientific forums. He has been elected to the highly contended post of Academy Fellow at the Finnish Academy for the years 2013-2018.
Junior good teacher: Research Assistant Joni Salmi
Joni has acted within the basic education at the department as coordinator of the much acclaimed workshop instruction, also participating in many courses as instructor and mentor. The student feedback he has received has been overwhelmingly good. In addition to regular course instruction, Joni is an active mentor to his students, as well as on several irc online chats. In addition to his excellent teaching skills, Joni has progressed in an exemplary way in his own degree studies, both in quantity and quality.
Junior good researcher: Doctoral Student Dominik Kempa
In 2012-2014, Dominik has had 15 refereed articles published or accepted for publication in international scientific forums. Furthermore, Dominik has completed all his Doctoral courses with excellent grades, so he will be defending his compilation thesis in the near future.
Senior good teacher: Assistant Professor Teemu Roos
Teemu has participated in the teaching and its development at the department in an exemplary way, using many innovative methods of pedagogy. The student feedback he has received has been very good. Of special significance is the responsibility Teemu has had for the research school at the department, where students interested in research and a scientific career can learn about and participate in the research at the department while they are still working on their BSc degree.