Raquel Plaskett has been named as the Culture Champion for the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at Georgia Tech. 

The College of Engineering (CoE) Staff Culture Advisory Council established the Culture Champion Awards Program to recognize staff members in each of the CoE schools who advocate for a positive and productive culture in their school and in the College. These individuals work to support and/or develop successful cultural practices and strive to make a difference.

Plaskett has been with ECE since 2013, where she is now a faculty support coordinator working with the Center for Signal and Information Processing and the Fiber-Wireless Integration and Networking (FiWIN) Center and with the digital signal processing and telecommunications technical interest groups. Plaskett is a floor manager, representing 5th floor interests to the management of the Centergy Building. She handles many issues and prevents them from rising to a level requiring faculty intervention. Plaskett does everything from managing workshops to coordinating sponsor visits to being the go-to person for over 50 graduate students.

Plaskett has served as the interim director of the ECE Diversity and Inclusion Council, which was established a year ago. This group is made up of undergraduate and graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, faculty and staff members, and ECE Advisory Board members. Its mission is to create and sustain a diverse and inclusive environment where all faculty, staff, students, and volunteers feel valued and appreciated in all departments, programs, and worksites. They also work to promote an academically enriching and supportive climate that allows all members to thrive and succeed.  In addition, Plaskett will serve as a member of the Georgia Tech Staff Council starting in 2022, and she serves on the Council's Employee Benefits and Compensation Committee. She is an active advocate for staff from the team and school level to the campus at large.

Prior to joining ECE, Plaskett was an administrative professional in the Scheller College of Business from 2010-2013, where she supported faculty and staff, including three department chairs. Before working at Georgia Tech, Plaskett was an administrative assistant at Kurt Salmon Associates, a management consulting firm now parented by Accenture. She holds a B.A. degree in Mathematics from Siena Heights University.

Plaskett completed the Georgia Tech ASPIRE Leadership program in 2019, and earlier this year, she received a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Workplace Certificate from the University of South Florida Corporate Training and Professional Education Division.