Helpful People

Please note: during COVID, the best way to contact MKI staff is by email.

Name	Office	Phone #
Jack Defandorf Administrative Officer	37-261	253-6103	Supervision of HQ staff, accounting for Kavli endowment, Lab Allocation issues, coordination of offices in Buildings 37 and NE83.
Kara DeNutte Senior Financial Officer	37-287	324-6264	Any questions pertaining to contracts and grants—travel, purchasing, prior approvals for travel and equipment. Also serves as the Parking Coordinator.
Amanda Holley Human Resources Administrator	37-284	324-5398	MIT appointments and MIT IDs; MKI orientation; office location and keys.
Paul Hsi Senior Systems Administrator	37-232 NE83-519	253-3322	Accounts for MKI High Performance Computing, Linux support
Charles Leiserson (Ricky) IT Desktop Support Specialist	37-232 NE83-519	253-7517	Mac OS X and Linux support; technical purchasing information; IT helpdesk
Kelley Mahoney Grants Administrator	37-274	253-0698	Budgeting and proposal preparation, PI status requests, proposal routing, other preaward issues.
Debbie Meinbresse Assistant to the Director	37-241	253-1456	landing page photo and website information; MKI mailing lists; MKI news and events
Jean Papagianopoulos Financial Administrator	37-271	253-6116	Purchasing/Subawards/Fabricated equipment requests
Kenton Phillips Network Administrator	37-232 NE83-519	253-2067	Computer accounts for Unix/Linux workstation login, e-mail, and webspace; network access
Carlos Solorzano TESS Financial Administrator	37-274	253-3429	Any questions pertaining to TESS contracts and grants—travel, purchasing, prior approvals for travel and equipment.
Teresa Santiago Financial Assistant	37-281	253-7078	Credit cards, requests for payment, and travel questions.
Brian Surette Facilities/Safety Manager	37-275	253-8062	Building issues; elevator access

Regularly Scheduled Events

Mondays

MKI Brown Bag Lunch Talks
MKI holds Brown Bag Lunch talks during the academic year on selected Mondays from 12:00-1:00pm. Brown Bag Lunch is our astronomy-wide talk series catering to junior visitors (grad students and postdocs). For the fall 2020 semester we are moving to a virtual format. Speakers will be listed under events on space.mit.edu. Zoom information will be shared prior to each BBL. If you have questions or speaker suggestions, please contact MKI postdoc co-organizers:
Aaron Smith (arsmith@mit.edu), Jun Yang (yangjun@mit.edu), Hsin-Yu Chen (himjiu@mit.edu); Michael McDonald continues as the BBL faculty organizer (mcdonald@space.mit.edu).

Tuesdays

MKI Astrophysics Colloquia
MKI holds an Astrophysics Colloquium on Tuesday afternoons. For the fall 2020 term, all talks will be virtual and will usually start at 4:00pm. Talks by our international speakers will start at 10:00am. Speakers and talk abstracts will be posted on the MKI website events page, along with the starting time for each talk. Email announcements about the talks are sent out weekly. The faculty co-organizers for fall 2020 are Erin Kara (ekara@mit.edu) and Kiyoshi Masui (kmasui@mit.edu). Student coordinator for post-talk conversations with the speaker: Stephanie O’Neil (sloneil@mit.edu).

MKI Postdoc Lunch Meeting
A biweekly lunch meeting for MKI’s postdoctoral fellows and associates is held on Tuesdays. For 2020-2021, Steven Silverberg (ssilverb@mit.edu) is the lunch meeting organizer. Fall term dates will be posted soon. The first meeting will be held virtually.

Women in MKI Lunch Meeting
A once-a-month gathering of women in the MKI community. The September meeting will be held virtually on September 15. Details forthcoming. Contact Debbie (meinbres@mit.edu) if you have any questions.

Wednesdays

MKI Grad Student Lunch Meeting
A weekly lunch meeting for MKI’s graduate students is held on Wednesdays. For 2020-2021, Rahul Jayarman (rjayaram@mit.edu) and Geoffrey Mo (gmo@mit.edu) are the lunch meeting organizers.

Thursdays

Physics Colloquia
MIT’s Department of Physics holds a weekly colloquium on Thursday afternoons (refreshments 3:30pm, talk 4:00pm). Refer to the Physics website for specific details.

Fridays

MKI Journal Club
Journal Club takes place every Friday during the academic year from 12-1:00. For fall 2020, meetings will be held via Zoom. The basic format remains the same, two 15-minute talks on current papers of interest. For 2020-2021, Michael McDonald (mcdonald@space.mit.edu) continues as faculty organizer with assistance from astro grads Sylvia Biscoveanu (sbisco@mit.edu) and Michael Calzadilla (msc92@mit.edu) and postdocs Christina Eilers (eilers@mit.edu) and Michael Fausnaugh (faus@mit.edu). Please note: virtual Journal Club starts on September 11 with a meet-and-greet, where everybody gives a 30-second introduction of themselves. Details are forthcoming.

Your MKI Web Presence

Please email Debbie (meinbres@mit.edu) when you arrive at MKI. Debbie will work with you to create your landing page for the MKI website. Send Debbie a high-res photo of yourself along with a brief bio and statement about your research interests, providing as much or as little information as you would like. Feel free to include education information along with selected publications and information about any awards or honors you have received. In addition to a brief statement about your research interests, we ask people to broadly identify their research by selecting from the list of terms under science themes, techniques, and instrumentation on the Research page of the MKI website. Any questions, talk to Debbie!