Tamara Maciel, Program Director, School of Anatomy
A Lab Like No Other
Tamara Maciel is the Program Director for the School of Anatomy at the University of Waterloo, established in 1978 to give students of human movement an in-depth understanding of the structures of the human body.
Waterloo is one of only a handful of universities in Canada where first-year Kinesiology students study anatomy using real human specimens rather than models or textbooks alone.
As Program Director, Tamara oversees the human anatomy lab and manages a wide range of moving parts, from scheduling student appointments to coordinating the graduate teaching assistants and volunteers who support the program.
Too Many Moving Parts
Between running the anatomy lab and supporting students, Tamara juggles two very different scheduling challenges.
On one side, students regularly need one-on-one time with Tamara or her graduate teaching assistants, whether they need extra help with course material or want to review an exam. Coordinating those appointments across multiple people, time slots, and locations without a shared system quickly becomes a scheduling headache.
On the other side, Tamara also runs outreach events and volunteer programming in the lab. Those programs depend on a large number of volunteers, and recruiting and organizing them by hand meant tracking details like availability, skills, preferences, and even t-shirt sizes across scattered spreadsheets or email threads.
One Genius Fix for Two Jobs
Tamara turned to SignUpGenius to bring both sides of her scheduling work into one place.
For student appointments, she uses sign ups to set specific time slots and locations for herself and her graduate teaching assistants. Students can choose a time that works for them, whether they need help with coursework or want to go over an exam, without emailing back and forth to find an open slot.
For her outreach events and volunteer programming, SignUpGenius lets Tamara collect exactly the information she needs from volunteers in one spot, including their skills, their preferences, and details like t-shirt sizes. That means less manual tracking and a clearer picture of who is available and qualified for each role.
Built for More Than One Use Case
Whether you're scheduling one-on-one appointments or recruiting a team of volunteers, SignUpGenius sign ups can be customized to collect exactly the information you need.
SignUpGenius has become a daily tool in Tamara's work, cutting down on the organizational headaches that come with running a busy academic lab. Student appointments are easier to manage and easier for students to book, and volunteer coordination is far less manual than it used to be.
What started as Tamara's own solution has also spread beyond her office. Other colleagues in her department at the University of Waterloo have adopted SignUpGenius for their own scheduling and coordination needs, drawn to its flexibility across very different use cases.
In Tamara's Words
"SignUpGenius takes away so many of the organizational headaches that I face. I just find it to be such a powerful tool."
Tamara Maciel, Program Director, School of Anatomy, University of Waterloo
Simplify Scheduling for Your Team
From student appointments to volunteer coordination, SignUpGenius helps you manage it all in one place.
This is my second year using SignUpGenius, and I absolutely love it. I have been in charge of concessions as a cheer mom for many years, and these two years have been by far the easiest. It makes dealing with high school parents much easier.
Posted by Ally Patterson
