Alex Yelland
President
Alexander is a 4th year graduate student in the astrophysics division studying observational stellar astrophysics, specifically looking for metal-poor stars that can tell us more about the chemical and physical conditions of the early universe. He originally hails from a small town in rural Kansas. After receiving his undergraduate education at Washburn University, he moved to Cambridge and joined the MIT weirdos! Beyond the gates of academia, Alex spends his time running and sailing the Charles, playing with tools in his workshop, gathering friends to play tabletop/video games, and, most of all, hunting down any green spaces inside/outside this concrete forest.
Alexandra Klipfel
Vice President of Socials
Alexandra is a third year student in the NUPAX division working on experimental detection strategies to search for primordial black holes. She was born and raised in Agua Dulce, California and attended Caltech for undergrad. Outside of work, Alexandra loves traveling, reading, painting, and playing volleyball.
Michael Reefe
Vice President of Academic Advocacy
Webmaster
Michael (he/him) is a third-year in the astrophysics division using integral field unit spectroscopy to research cooling flows, the intracluster medium, and more generally the dynamics and evolution of gas and dust in galaxy clusters. He grew up in the rural Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and did his undergrad at George Mason University before moving to Cambridge. In his free time, he enjoys hiking, classical music, and video games.
Swati Ravi
Vice President of Admissions Initiatives
Swati (she/her) is a second-year student in the astrophysics division studying the structure of neutron star and black hole systems by characterizing their magnetic fields. She also develops technology for future space telescopes including a NASA sounding rocket telescope called REDSoX (yes, like the baseball team!) which will look at magnetic fields of high-energy astrophysical objects at new energies. Swati grew up in Dallas, TX, completed her undergraduate studies at Columbia University, and earned her master’s degree at University College Dublin. Outside of the lab, she enjoys reading, painting, fiber crafts, and botany.
Wentao Cui
Treasurer
Wentao (he/him) is a third-year student in the CTP interested in holography, algebraic QFT, and strongly coupled theories. He grew up in Edmonton, Canada, and went to University of Toronto for his undergraduate. Outside of physics, talk to him anytime about Schubert or Beethoven, T.S. Eliot or GRRM, or anything at all about memes.
Yadira Gaibor
Cookie Social Chair
Yadira is a fourth-year graduate student in the astrophysics division, where she studies exoplanets in binary star systems. Originally from Ecuador, she moved to the U.S. to complete her undergraduate studies at Missouri State University before heading to Cambridge. In her free time, she enjoys crafts, reading, sci-fi, and exploring the outdoors.
Sydney Jenkins
Cookie Social Chair
Sydney (she/her) is a fourth-year graduate student in the astrophysics division studying white dwarf planetary systems. She’s originally from Rhode Island and did her undergrad at the University of Chicago. Outside of research, you can find her reading, hiking, or forgetting to water her plants.
Dominika Durovcikova
Pizza Social Chair
Dominika is a 5th year Physics student in the Astro division. She spends her days thinking about the hungriest and most distant black holes in our Universe and observing them using a variety of telescopes. Outside of work, Dominika is known for having “too many hobbies”, ranging from tennis and skiing to music and visual arts.
Emma Chickles
Pizza Social Chair
Emma (she/her) is a fourth-year graduate student in the astrophysics division who uses GPU-accelerated algorithms to search for merging binary star systems. Before going to Wellesley College for undergrad, she spent half her life in Massachusetts and the other half in Hong Kong. Her hobbies include rock climbing, drinking coffee, and taking walks.
Joheen Chakraborty
Faculty Breakfast Chair
Joheen is a third-year student in the astrophysics division working on X-ray observations of black hole accretion. Originally from New Jersey, his hobbies include playing video games, skiing, and taking walks in the park. Follow him on Twitter @joheenc!
Manu Srivastava
Colloquium Lunch Chair
Manu is a 3rd year graduate student at the Center for Theoretical Physics. He is passionate about understanding the functioning of the universe at the most fundamental level possible. In particular, trying to work towards a quantum theory of gravity for the universe we live in. His current interests are black hole physics, algebraic quantum field theory and holography. He did most of his schooling on the Western Ghats of India followed by an undergrad at IIT Bombay in Mumbai. Before joining MIT, he was at the Perimeter Institute in Canada for a year long Masters program. He is a poetry enthusiast who is also interested in Eastern Philosophy. He spends most of his non-Physics time on a plethora of different sports- cricket, basketball, tennis, badminton, squash, to name a few .
Rachel Steinhorst
Colloquium Lunch Chair
Rachel is a third-year in the CTP studying relativistic heavy ion collisions, the quark-gluon plasma, and hot/dense QCD. She is originally from Wisconsin and did her undergrad at Michigan State University. She enjoys reading, swing dancing, cooking, and sailing on the Charles river.
Sean Benevedes
Career Chair
Sean (he/him) is a fourth year student in the CTP working on particle theory, quantum field theory, and machine learning. He is originally from California’s Central Valley and went to UC Santa Barbara for undergrad. He can often be found playing IM Basketball, indulging his new running phase, or contemplating his choices in life as he reads obscure Wikipedia articles about Carl Schlechter.
Noah Paladino
Intramural Sports Manager
Noah (he/him) is a fourth year student in the NUPAX division working with Philip Harris on the CMS and SpinQuest experiments, with a primary focus on dark matter searches. Originally from New Jersey, he completed his undergraduate degree at Rutgers University, which is where he found his love of particle physics research. Outside of physics, Noah is involved in the Tech Model Railroad Club at MIT and enjoys cycling, soccer, pickleball, and volleyball.