EPA meeting - January 15th, 2016

Present: Carmen Sanchez, Judith Reichel, Titto Augustine, Shalu Sharma, Jonathan Bizarro, LorenzaFavrot, AdvaithaMadireddy, Ana Gradissimo, Elena Martynova, Marcos Almendros, Sara Donnelly, SusmitaBagchi, Elaine Maggi, NishtalaSita, Jessica Fellmeth, Olivia Vergnolle, Simren Mehta

Email regrets: Katie Stiles, William Chang and Nadia Storm

1)Election of new “Quality of life committee” representatives:

Current candidate: Simren Mehta to replace Allison Harney.

If interested, please, write an email to Olivia Vergnolle along with a short statement why you want to be a part of this committee.

2)2)Election of new postdoctoral representatives for AECOM Senate:

There are 8 open positions and you are expected to attend every Senate session (once a month). Also you can participate as alternate Senator (attend several meetings when permanent postdoctoral senator is unavailable)

New senator candidates: Jessica Fellmeth, Elaine Maggi, SusmitaBagchi, Elena Martynova and Judith Reichel.

Alternate senator: Simren Mehta.

Senate council representative: Olivia Vergnolle is replacing Allison Harney

Please, write to Olivia if interested to participate.

3)3)Election of representative for Annual NPA meeting in Grand Rapids, MI (March 4-6th)

Current candidates: Olivia Vergnolle, Elena Martynova.

Please, write to Olivia if interested to participate.

4) 4)Board game night

1st edition – January 29th, feel free to participate and bring board game if you have any.

Any other ideas about social activities EPA can organize for postdocs at Einstein?;

5) 5) “Guess who is speaking about science”

Next meeting – 21th of January. Beer and food is provided. Please, spread the word because it is very difficult to engage new speakers;

6)6)Problems of postdocs

Information on which topics do you think EPA needs to provide in the future:

·How to file your taxes

·Salary increase

·How to find housing outside the campus?

Any other ideas? Please, write to Olivia.

7)7)Postdoctoral salary

Anne Bresnik presented the data of EPA survey regarding postdoctoral salary situation at Science council and chairmen were very surprised to see this data. Dr. Bresnik will talk to the chairmen of the departments which already have an automatic increase to understand how they do it and spread the word to chairmen who, don’t implement automatic salary increase. The main goal – to achieve automatic salary increase for all postdocs at AECOM.

Question: can EPA make the results of the survey public and distribute it among postdocs?

8)8)Rhinelander problems

Robberies at postdoctoral housing during winter holidays vacation + ordinary lack of communication between tenants and housing/security offices.

Do we want to organize meeting between Rhinelander tenants and housing manager/chief of security?

9)9) New Montefiore health plans

For families 2+ people the health insurance is too expensive. Problems with choice of pharmacies still have not been fixed.

10)For non J1 trainees - make sure to download all your paystubs since after January 31th your access to Yeshiva system will be closed.

Thank you for attendance!