Tuesday, January 28, 2025

UVAFinance Welcomes Christa Albanez as Senior Workday Functional Analyst

The Albanez Family

This January, Christa Albanez joined UVAFinance as Senior Workday Functional Analyst, bringing with her a surfeit of valuable accounting and research administration experience from her time working at California Institute of Technology and City of Hope. As Senior Workday Functional Analyst, Albanez will help support Grants Management and troubleshoot issues surrounding them. 

Albanez was born and raised in California, and received her Bachelor's in Psychology at California State University, Los Angeles. After graduating, she started as an entry level administrative assistant at Caltech, which she says quickly spiraled into a greater passion for development within Research Administration and Grants Management, one of the biggest financial components of universities. Albanez worked at Caltech in the Post Award office as well as a Grant Manager in the department of Biology and Biological Engineering, managing the pre- and post-award side of things while also working directly with the faculty. Her interest in Psychology translated perfectly with her attentiveness to understanding how people work collaboratively together.

After having her two boys, Albanez says she was ready for a bit of a slower-paced lifestyle (and the opportunity to experience all four seasons!). With family on the East Coast, her and her family decided to move to Charlottesville. 

Albanez started in the Office of Sponsored Programs at UVA in 2021 with the opportunity to get back to a position focused on post award grants management and participate in the Grants Conversion to Workday. With her passion for systems support, and the ability to work closely with the Workday team as they were transitioning, she discovered how much she loved the work culture and environment. She enjoyed working closely alongside the team. 

With experience working with end users of Workday and leveraging her accounting knowledge, Albanez has a strong grasp of what users will be looking for out of Workday. In her new role as Functional Analyst, she'll receive tickets and issues from end users (supporting Grants Management), and help troubleshoot and triage those issues. Albanez is also excited to explore other aspects of how research is supported outside of Grants Management. 

In her free time, Albanez can be found outdoors with her family. The Albanez family enjoys hiking, summers at the pool, stand-up paddleboarding, kayaking, and currently, her two boys have found a resurgent interest in Pokémon. While a California girl at heart, Albanez says she's been enjoying the closeness of everything in Charlottesville and the beautiful atmosphere the city has to offer.

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