The Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) is pleased to welcome Megan Cokely, the department’s new Senior Development Officer (SDO). She started on January 3rd.
Cokely graduated from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA with a BA in Spanish, before attended the London School of Economics and Political Science to earn an MA in the History of International Relations. From there, she spent some time as a journalist, interning with Newsweek Magazine and the BBC, and later working as a research associate at WBUR. After this, she pivoted into the academic sphere, taking a position at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University as a campaign coordinator. Since 2014, Cokely has worked as a fundraiser for Cambridge in America, an organization designed to help support the University of Cambridge’s (UK) alumni living in the US.
Cokely sat down to answer three questions about her decision to come to MIT and her vision for EAPS.
Q: What compelled you to apply for the EAPS job?
A: I’ve been a generalist working for the University of Cambridge, so we would fundraise for absolutely everything. And when you work like that, there’s so many different areas that you really don’t get to focus on and learn the research, or really get to know the academics very well in any particular area. So I told myself that for my next job, I really wanted to be more concentrated, and to get to understand what people are working on and to be on a campus and get to show people around campus. When I saw the job at EAPS, I was really interested in a lot of the things that the faculty are working on, because they’re so relevant to many of the issues that are facing all of us today.
Q: What are you most excited about in this new position?
A: I’m really excited to get to meet and work with different faculty members and learn what they’re working on. And I’m excited to get to meet a whole new group of donors and supporters, and learn about them and get them interested in the work that’s going on at EAPS.
Q: What is your vision, as SDO, for EAPS?
A: Certainly, to carry on the work that’s already begun by my predecessor. And once I learn and figure out things, getting to work a little bit creatively and have some new projects that need funding, and maybe find new donors that we haven’t worked with before.
