Professional. Caring. Enthusiastic. Self-disciplined. And above all, kind.

This is how colleagues describe Lei Zhang, research lab specialist in the Institute of Human Virology’s (IHV) Clinical Division at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM).

“A few months ago, a sports injury forced me off my feet at a time that I was attending in the hospital. Lei understood my situation, borrowed a wheelchair, and pushed me to see patients during Rounds,” said her supervisor, Nicholas Stamatos, MD, PhD, associate professor, UMSOM. “This was clearly an example of going well beyond the call of duty. Lei cares about everyone around her.”

Stamatos, along with colleagues from IHV and the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) Staff Senate, attended a videoconference with UMB President Bruce E. Jarrell, MD, FACS, on Sept. 26 to surprise Zhang with the news that she was UMB’s September Employee of the Month. 

“Your report was glowing,” Jarrell said in congratulating Zhang. “It sounds like your lab greatly appreciates you not just for your lab skills, but also for your personal qualities and caring about people.”

As a research assistant in the lab of Stamatos, whose studies are focused on understanding the role of glycosylation in regulating the function of white blood cells in immunity, Zhang manages laboratory animals used in these studies. 

“To continue to meet the experiment’s needs, I need to take care of enough breeder cages of mice that are deficient in four different genes. Which cages have newborn mice? Which mice are old enough to be weaned?” she said. “There are two to five mice in a cage. Over the past five years, I have taken care of 1,000 cages of experimental mice.”

“In addition to breeding the mice, Lei has simplified the process of identifying the mice we need by improving our method of genetically characterizing them,” Stamatos said.  

Zhang recently met in the lab with the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee’s Post-Approval Monitoring team.

“When inspecting our animal room, the investigator exclaimed in amazement, ‘I have never seen such clear marking cards for each cage!’ ” Stamatos said, calling Zhang “a tremendous asset to me, to the lab, and to the University as a whole.”

Zhang, who was a cardiologist in China when she came to the United States 30 years ago and has worked at UMB since 1995, is perhaps best known to her colleagues for her support of mental health and for practicing kindness wherever she goes.

“All I can do is never pass up an opportunity to share my understanding of mental health and the process of self-healing,” she said. “Thirty years ago, I was a cardiology clinician. But I felt more like a psychiatrist. My care, enthusiasm, understanding, and sympathy for my patients were more important than medicine. No matter where I am, mental health thinking is top of mind. Being a doctor or doing scientific research is just my career to support my family. Focusing on mental health is my life’s work.”

Her colleagues call her a joy to work with.

“She always has a smile for someone, always has a kind or encouraging word, and always has energy to spare for everybody,” said Shawnta Privette, MSL, UMB police communications supervisor who serves with Zhang on UMB’s Staff Senate.

Stamatos agreed. “Words cannot describe Lei’s passion for her work and people. She deserves recognition for her daily mental health efforts, most notably after the pandemic. She cares about people in a way that none of us can.”

Zhang says building relationships is her favorite part of her job.

“What I like most in the laboratory is not only providing specific help to young people in scientific research technology, but I don’t miss any opportunity to make interpersonal relationships and increase team cohesion,” she said. “This is how mental health environments are built.”

Zhang, who will receive a plaque, a letter of commendation, and an extra $250 in her next paycheck, thanked all of her colleagues over the years at UMB for their support.

“Realizing my dream of contributing to humanistic construction is inseparable from the workplace environment. I want to thank every professor and colleague I have worked with for their understanding and tolerance because not everyone can accept my sincerity,” she said. 

Stamatos, for one, has appreciated her outlook.

“She said that no matter her position, she must work for herself.  At first, I did not understand it. I thought she was working for me. But now I understand better what she meant,” he said. “Lei’s ideal future is to live in an environment of happiness and laughter. Her motivation for living is not fame or wealth but that her existence can make others happy. Those that know Lei appreciate the bright light that her essence beams toward us.”

— Jen Badie