Alison Salie serves as the department’s senior financial staff member. She plays a key role in budgeting, strategic financial planning, and research contract administration, and offers guidance to the Department Head on matters of financial policy and spending. In addition, Alison trains and supervises all department financial staff, particularly with regard to MIT and federal research grant policies and procedures, proposal preparation, and forecasting.
Rebecca Chamberlain holds a Master of Sacred Music from Boston University School of Theology. Rebecca arrived at MIT in 1981, while simultaneously pursuing a career as a church musician, singer, organist, and choir director. She served as a part-time Administrative Assistant in the Nuclear Reactor Laboratory, later occupying the same position in the Department of Applied Biological Sciences. Rebecca ultimately decided to make music an avocation and pursue administration full time, at which point she began as the Fellowship Coordinator for the United Nations University Food, Nutrition, Biotechnology, and Poverty Programme (a Japanese entity whose United States office was located at MIT).
In 1987, Rebecca assumed the role of Administrative Officer — first in the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies, followed by the Department of Architecture, and finally in the Department of Biology beginning in 2014. Today, she works closely with the Department Head, other department leadership, and senior staff to provide management and support for all administrative functions — including personnel, finance, student services, development and communications, operations, and space allocation.
Rebecca has lent her experience and service to a number of MIT projects and committees including Risk Council, Administrative Task Force, and the Childcare Advisory and Scholarship Committee. She has also served as the Chair of MIT’s Administrative Advisory Committee, and held various leadership positions, including President, of the Technology Children’s Center (TCC) Board of Trustees when it was a non-profit organization, as well as Treasurer for the International Nutrition Foundation for Developing Countries.