Catalina Rey, PhD, of the Munroe-Meyer Institute Early Intervention Program, and the Student Alliance for People of All Abilities, a student group created with the support of MMI, recently were recognized with iTEACH Awards.
The awards are given by the UNMC Office of Community Engagement, the Student Life Inclusion and Diversity Office and the UNMC Student Senate. They are designed to recognize students, student organizations, faculty members and staff for their contributions to student life at UNMC.
Catalina Rey, PhD
Dr. Rey received the UNMC Student Senate Distinguished Mentor Award.
The award recognizes a full- or part-time faculty member who has served as a role model to students, demonstrating high professional and ethical standards.
In her role in the early intervention program at MMI’s integrated Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders, Dr. Rey not only teaches, she also mentors and advises PhD and masters students.
Dr. Rey also does research, often with her students, and works on administrative items related to the early intervention programming at the institute.
Mentoring is incredibly important, she said. It involves helping with research skills, peer review processes, presentation skills, service work and supervising others. Dr. Rey also helps her students find opportunities, including grants and research.
“You’re mentoring them on how to become a good clinician, but also as an academic,” Dr. Rey said about PhD students.
Receiving the award was humbling, Dr. Rey said, especially since it came during a tough teaching semester.
“One of the parts of my job that I love the most is having students and mentoring students,” she said. “In academia, mentoring work often can go unnoticed. I know how much it has meant to me to be mentored. It’s something I really do take seriously, and it’s so nice to see that other people notice it and appreciate it.”
Student Alliance for People of All Abilities
The interdisciplinary group received the UNMC Office of Community Engagement Community Health Education Award.
The award is given to a student organization that demonstrates UNMC core values by contributing to the development of educational health care services or programming to community agencies, schools or organizations.
The Student Alliance for People of All Abilities is designed to promote more education on working with people with disabilities, said Bailey Reigle, a co-president of the group.
The group received the award for its work with a deaf-centric hospital. The group partnered with organizations and individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing. People form the deaf community acted as doctors and medical students acted as deaf patients to experience barriers of care, Reigle said.
“We were really proud that all of our hard work paid off,” she said.