Staff Spotlight: Diana Lin
As the nexus for the HR functions in the Civil & Environmental Engineering Department, I get to work with everyone in the department to invite people of all flavors to CEE. This includes administrative staff, academic/teaching staff, visiting faculty, and academic faculty. Most of my role is using my superpowers to push paperwork around in the background. The most impactful work that I do for the department is supporting faculty committees that shape the department’s future through recruitment and promotion efforts.

I ended up at Stanford in CEE serendipitously. It was actually Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital that drew me to Stanford – LPCH provided cancer treatment and compassionate care to a close friend of mine while she was battling Ewing’s sarcoma. She passed away in 2012. After I completed my undergrad, an acquaintance at the gym began sharing job postings with me from the Staffers mailing list. Despite my reservations about the commute, I accepted a six-month temp position at VPUE [Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education] in 2014. I thought it might be a meaningful way to honor my friend. I have since learned that the university and the hospital are completely separate entities, and in the words of Steve Jobs: “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward.” I chose to connect the dots diagonally.
My adventures with CEE began in February 2015. I started as the admin for the architectural design undergraduate program in CEE and became more involved with the other programs in the department by supporting faculty and providing peripheral program support. In the summer of 2020, CEE was restructured due to the university layoffs, and it opened the opportunity to start supporting the Sustainable Design & Construction program as well. The pandemic inspired me to try something different, so I applied for a promotion. CEE anointed me as the Faculty Affairs & Staffing Manager in March of 2021.
The CEE community is one of Stanford’s best-kept secrets. When I first started, many of the staff had been working in CEE anywhere from 20 to 40 years. That in itself is a testament to our department’s work culture. Even as new faces fill the spaces once occupied by those colleagues, it still feels like we are all on the same team trying to work toward the same goal, not always seamlessly, but we figure it out together.
My transition from being an admin to a manager was quite challenging. Admins are the heart of the programs that they support, orchestrating the magic behind the scenes. My current role, which supports our admins, felt like I was on the outskirts, and the dynamic left me feeling disconnected from the department. Imposter syndrome was following me around like a shadow for at least the first year. The autonomy eventually started to feel more refreshing than intimidating as I became more familiar with the job and more confident in myself.
My colleagues are my rocks. They graciously let me pop into their offices for focus time or brainstorming on the fly. These impromptu visits are my moments of connection – sparks of creativity and camaraderie.
When I take a step back from the daily chaos of the hustle and bustle, it is really rewarding to witness our community in action. Whether it’s just getting someone to the right building for their next meeting or helping them find a solution to their problem, I like to think that we’re all walking each other home.