Innovative and Creative Contributions
The Andy Award for Innovative and Creative Contributions honors staff members who have developed new approaches, methods and processes to improve organizational effectiveness. They have demonstrated imagination and creativity in solving problems or fostering change that has benefited the university community. These nominees are expansive thinkers and effectual doers.
Criteria include making significant and positive contributions to achieving organizational objectives, recognizing opportunities to improve, streamline or reinvent processes or systems and creating a work environment that encourages others to embrace change and creativity.
2025 Award Recipient
Krystalyn Kovacs
Mellon College of Science
2025 Nominees
Krystalyn Kovacs
Mellon College of Science
Krystalyn has worked diligently to improve coordination across multiple departments in planning the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research’s annual commencement ceremonies. She also has improved transparency and communication to students as they prepare to participate in these ceremonies.
Matthew Salyers
Mellon College of Science
Matthew is an expansive thinker and an effectual doer who demonstrates imagination and creativity in solving problems. He fosters meaningful change across the college and the broader CMU community.
Ian Smith
Tepper School of Business
Ian performed outstanding work to implement the Kudo.ai Multi- Language Captioning platform, an AI-driven live translation and captioning system for Tepper’s 2025 commencement.