We work around the clock to help the MIT Community get a daily dose of health and wellness. Our goal is to keep you motivated and remind you to take a break for a little bit of recreation.
Born and raised in Medford, MA, Abby Brady got into recreation at a young age thanks to her participation in various sports and camps. You name it, Abby probably played it at one point or another. Eventually, Brady narrowed down her choices in middle school to focus on swimming and rowing. In middle school, she was offered a chance to swim for the high school varsity swim team at Medford through senior year of high school and later on in college for Ithaca College club team. Swimming was a gateway to working in recreation bringing new opportunities including becoming certified as a lifeguard and teaching swim lessons to others in Medford and at here at MIT part-time. Before coming to MIT full time Brady split time between Medford Recreation and MIT Recreation. In Medford, she managed programs, teaching classes, and filling in wherever needed. While working at MIT recreation part time she held various roles including as a lifeguard and swim instructor, and working her way up to part time deck/event manager and served as the 2023 MIT Summer Day Swim Lead.
When Abby’s am not working, she can be found flying her drone and taking photos for her website. She can also be found enjoying outside activities like hiking, skiing, golfing, paddle boarding and relaxing on the beach when the nice weather comes.
Favorite Quote: “Do what love, Love what you do.”
Demetris Chambliss is a 23-year-old New Orleans native with a bachelor’s degree in music therapy from Howard University and is currently a graduate student at Lesley University, specializing in Mental Health Counseling with a focus on Music Therapy. During the day, he’s the new full-time swim instructor and lifeguard for MIT Recreation, bringing six years of experience in Aquatics to the Aquatics team. Demetris is a certified Lifeguard, Water Safety Instructor, Lifeguard Instructor, CPR Instructor, and Pool Operator. Beyond the pool, his passions include cooking, doing hair, and playing his instruments. Additionally he’s also a proud member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity of America. In his free time, he loves exploring new cultures through travel, making connections, and creating positive waves in the world.
Nicole Ortega, a native of Long Island, N.Y. and alum of Penn State University (WE ARE!), has been active and playing sports since her childhood. She’s played soccer, volleyball, and lacrosse and earned captaincy for the latter two sports. Nicole also enjoys going to the gym and staying active, especially through group exercise classes, a favorite fitness pastime. Her role with MIT Recreation has her overseeing the day-to-day operations at Alumni/Wang and the administrative functions of memberships. (If you have a membership question, Nicole will likely have the answer!)
Outside of the office, Nicole enjoys going to the movies, cooking, and going to exercise classes.
Favorite quote: “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” – Albert Einstein
Jennifer Lima was born and raised in the Boston area to a family of Brazilian immigrants, and is the first American-born member in her family. Her mom had her in swim lessons starting when I was very young at the Kennedy Pool in Somerville, Mass. This is where Jennifer would learn to swim, join their swim team, and eventually work there for the majority of her young life. She also received her American Red Cross Certifications in Lifeguarding and First Aid at Kennedy Pool. Aquatics has always been a large part of her life and she’s happy to be a part of the MIT Recreation community as the Evening Aquatic Supervisor. Jennifer’s role consists of training and supervising the MIT lifeguards, managing the lifeguard schedule, and helping with onboarding, cleaning, and orientations when needed.
Currently Jennifer Lima is a Senior at Massachusetts College of Art and Design studying for her Bachelors in Ceramics and Art Education. In her free time, when not progressing in her artistic practice in Ceramics, loves working in watercolor and Acrylic painting, and oil pastels. Outside of the Arts, Jennifer loves to cook, going to see live music, and has begun to take an interest to running, including running her first 5K in December of 2022.
“‘Don’t you hear it?’ She asked. And I shook my head no and then she started to dance and suddenly there was music everywhere and it went on for a very long time and when I finally found words all I could say was thank you.”
Michael has earned a bachelor’s degree at Salem State University in Theater Arts. He opens the pool during the week, as well as manages the private swim program. Michael also assists Aquatic Program Director, Morgan Anderson, with the coordination of group swim lesson programs. Michael has been around the MIT community for over a decade. He has worked for the MIT Athletics Summer Day Camp program, and started officially working for Health Fitness in 2017 as an instructor and part-time lifeguard. Additionally, Michael has spearheaded new ideas to streamline private lessons in order to create the best experience possible for our members.
Jessica Roldan, a native of Eastie, which is what locals call East Boston, has worked at MIT Recreation since 2018 in various part-time roles until climbing the ladder to her current supervisor role in 2021. She loves her work, especially working with the people and patrons who fill up the Zesiger Center.
Jessica graduated from Wakefield, Massachusetts’s North East Metro Tech in 2012 and has even worked in auto body collision repair for four years before joining the MIT Recreation team. Away from the Z Center, Jessica enjoys going to parks with her son, watching sports with her family and trying as many different varieties of cold brew coffee from as many different coffee shops as she possibly can.
“With great power comes great responsibility.” — Peter Parker
Nichell (she/her) is originally from Derry NH. As a child, she participated in dance classes (ballet, jazz, and modern), cheerleading, and track and field. She graduated from Hampton University with a BS in Biological Sciences in 2010 and then completed the Master of Social Work program at Boston University. After practicing social work for several years and undergoing a significant fitness transformation, Nichell became a certified personal trainer through the American College of Sports Medicine in 2019. She has worked in a number of different facilities and capacities including but not limited to budget-friendly fitness centers, woman and non-binary only fitness centers, health clubs, virtual personal training sessions, and partner/small-group training. At MIT, Nichell has collaborated with various groups on campus including but not limited to women/non-binary only spaces, LGBTQIA+ friendly spaces, athletic teams, and children/adolescents with a focus on creating a safer and more inclusive environment for all individuals to address fitness and wellness goals. Her specialized foci include special population/inclusivity training, behavior change, weight loss, flexibility/mobility, resistance training, and strength training.
Nichell’s personal training philosophy is as follows: “Do the work when no one is watching! Whether or not you receive accolades or recognition for the work you do, doing the work is the only way to get the results. Make the choice to do the hard work while also exercising grace and patience with yourself.”
Additional certifications:
ACSM-CPT
ACE Health Coach
LSWA
Pre/postnatal certified
Assisted stretch certified
ACSM Post GAS training certified
First Aid/CPR
Dayvon Russell, MIT Recreation’s Evening Member Services Supervisor was born and raised in Naugatuck, CT. He’s Recent graduate of Dean College, where he pursued a bachelor’s degree in sport management. While at Dean, Dayvon starred on the men’s basketball team. In addition to finding him on the hardwood during his days at Dean, you can now find him in the school’s athletic record book as the team’s first 1,000 point scorer in the history of the Dean College Bulldogs program.
As part of his duties here at MIT Recreation, Dayvon serves as the evening shift supervisor. This places him the emergency point of contact for the department of athletics, physical education, and aquatics. When away from the Zesiger Center, Dayvon loves to workout, play basketball & supporting his beloved UConn Huskies.
How do you go from where you are to where you wanna be? And I think you have to have an enthusiasm for life. You have to have a dream, a goal. And you have to be willing to work for it. — Basketball coach Jim Valvano
MIT Recreation’s Associate Director of Member Services, Jeff Callahan, grew up playing all kinds of sports. You name it, he played it, including football, baseball, basketball, soccer, rugby and lacrosse through high school. After his playing days were over, he has coached flag football baseball, and basketball at the middle school level. He has additional personal training experience and fitness experience through both the Beverly and Reading, Massachusetts YMCA’s. Callahan is also a graduate of Central Connecticut State University’s Exercise Science program and Endicott College’s Sports Leadership program is a native of Woburn, MA. When he’s not working all of the Z Center, you can find Jeff playing golf, video games, watching movies, and rooting for all of the Boston sports teams.
“We have to remember what’s important in life: friends, waffles, and work. Or waffles, friends, work. But work has to come third.” — Leslie Knope
Luke Olivier is a proud East Boston resident who was dragged into personal training by his fascination with research on fitness and strength sport, and its myriad connections with health, wellness, and wholeness. He is presently the Assistant Director of Fitness, Performance and Equipment. Olivier runs the Personal Training program, manages the gyms’ equipment and maintenance, and the ENGINEERyourHEALTH plus program, among other things.
Luke has a Personal Training Certification from the American College of Sports Medicine, and a Stretching Certification from the National Academy of Sports Medicine. In his free time, Luke trains himself from a bodybuilding school of thought, reads books, and takes his dog on road trips.
“We have met the enemy and he is us” — Walt Kelly
Amanda Molle is from Peabody, MA and still lives there! Growing up she cheered and played softball but was always at a sporting event. Her dad is an official for baseball and football, and always followed him to his games. When Amanda was old enough, she signed up to umpire little league baseball and it progressed to umpiring high school softball. Everything I knew about sports was fun and exciting, so Amanda wanted to turn it into my careers she was guided by a family friend, Russ DeRosa who is the Director of Strength and Conditioning at Boston College to tour Springfield College. After graduating on Alden Street, Amanda also attained her Masters degree in Sports Leadership from Endicott College. That was where her path to collegiate recreation began. Away from the office, she loves to travel and go to country concerts.
“Lead, follow, or get out of the way” – Dan Martin
Vinny Coppola was born and raised playing soccer Massachusetts’s beautiful Berkshire County, but also grew to love hockey before working in both prior to working at MIT Recreation. While in school and working Coppola took interest in his overall fitness, nutrition, and wellness while exploring ways to support my mental and physical wellbeing. He’s a graduate of both UMass-Lowell and Northeastern University’s engineering programs. Away from the Zesiger Center, Vinny enjoys cooking (a skill he learned while working in his grandmother’s restaurant as a kid), playing guitar and soccer, and going to trivia and game nghts.
“…the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.” – John Keating (Robin Williams)
Born in Easley South Carolina, Nick Jewell quickly grew bored and started long distance training and competing in races in order to kill time. Once in college at Clemson University Nick found Ultimate Frisbee and threw all of his athletic abilities at Ultimate. Since then Nick has competed in 7 different countries, represented the United States in a Worlds Tournament, coached a college team to a top 3 ranking in the US, and decided to make club sports a full time job here at MIT. He is the Associate Director of Club Sports, Intramural Sports, and Day Camp here in DAPER. Nick is in charge of all 34 of our club sports, 20 intramural sports, and 7 week summer camp for children where we see over 1,300 children attend.
Education: B.S. Psychology – Clemson ’14 ; M.Ed. College Athletics – Clemson ‘17
Certifications: CPR Cert. & USAU Coaching Cert.
“When a ball dreams, it dreams it’s a frisbee” – Stancil Johnson
Keenan Barr, grew up in Redmond, WA. Graduated from Lafayette College with an engineering degree. In his position, as Shift Leader, he wakes up bright and early to supervise morning operations at the Alumni/Wang fitness facility. Keenan played soccer, baseball, basketball, and ultimate frisbee growing up and throughout college. Keenan also laced up the running shoes serving four years on his high school cross country team. Additional recreation experience includes captaining his college ultimate frisbee team at Lafayette for two years. Away from campus, Keenan enjoys watching and playing sports, reading, playing board games, listening to music, traveling, and spending time with family and friends.
“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take” -Wayne Gretzky
Originally from New Jersey, Emily moved to Boston to pursue her B.S. Health Science degree at Northeastern University. Emily developed a love for Group Fitness through her roles as a barre and boxing instructor. She is also certified in AFAA Group Fitness, AFAA Cycling and AFAA Practical Yoga. An additional passion Emily has is food, she is currently pursing her Masters degree in Applied Nutrition from Northeastern. She loves trying new foods, and restaurants especially with friends and family. Emily will be supporting Group Exercise, Personal Training and much more here at MIT Recreation.
A quote Emily lives by is “Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better.” ~Maya Angelou
Daniel Becerra, originally from Venezuela, moved to Boston in 2015 and has been passionate about fitness ever since. A former open water swimmer in Venezuela, Daniel brings a strong athletic background to his role as MIT Recreation’s Fitness Coordinator. He manages part-time staff and plays a key role in supporting various interdepartmental projects to enhance the fitness experience for members. His favorite part of the job? Developing programs that elevate the fitness and wellness journey of the DAPER community, helping everyone reach their full potential.
Outside of work, Daniel enjoys spending time on creative projects, staying active, and exploring different aspects of wellness.
Charlie is a multifaceted fitness professional with a pragmatic mindset. With eight years of experience, he has gained great insights about campus recreation, corporate and commercial fitness, and collegiate and professional athletics. Charlie developed a passion for recreation while studying in undergrad at Indiana University because of familial community and vibrant atmosphere within the program. Additionally, Charlie has been a certified Personal Trainer for five years and designs safe, fun fitness programs that challenge athletes to achieve their optimal performance. He also loves leading Group Exercise classes like Spin and HIIT Circuit Training. He is a proud Hoosier who earned his B.S. in Kinesiology from Indiana University-Bloomington in 2013. Moreover, he earned his M.A. in Kinesiology from Saint Mary’s College of California where he was the PA Announcer for Men’s and Women’s Soccer, Women’s Volleyball, and Softball and instructed an undergraduate Functional Cross Training course. He loves Chicago and is a fan of the Cubs, Bulls, and Bears, but has learned to love the Boston sports teams. He also loves playing basketball, going for long walks, watching movies, listening to podcasts, and writing.
His favorite quote is “…People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”- Maya Angelou
Originally from the South End, Boston Morgan was introduced to aquatics at a young age. Starting with swim lessons, eventually becoming a life guard intern and now our Assistant Director of Aquatic Programs. Morgan studied Marine Affairs and Women’s Studies at University of Rhode Island before joining MIT Recreation. She is certified in CPR, First Aid, SCUBA and CPO. When she isn’t in the pool you can find Morgan training her puppy, trying new restaurants or reading!
Favorite quote: I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel -Maya Angelou
Greg Cameron’s love of sports truly ignited after a trip and tour of the hallowed halls of Boston Garden on a family trip before the vaunted arena was knocked down and replaced by the current TD Garden. Since that fateful trip, Cameron has played, covered, and completely consumed sports including, but not limited to hockey, baseball, soccer, basketball, and football throughout his childhood and subsequent career as a sports journalist for MassLive, WEEI.com, and LWOSports. In the dozen years since graduating from Springfield College, Cameron has built a career in marketing with several companies across Massachusetts focusing on social media and content-driven work. When Greg isn’t creating marketing collateral, you can find him at local record shops searching for awesome vinyl records, playing golf, going to the movies and museums, and cheering for the local Boston teams and Liverpool FC.
“You know what the happiest animal on Earth is? It’s a goldfish. You know why? It’s got a 10-second memory. Be a goldfish, Sam.” — Ted Lasso
Jason was born and raised in the Hoosier State, Indiana. He joined MIT Recreation in 2007 after working in campus recreation at Boston College. Prior to arriving in Boston, Jason was a campus recreation graduate assistant at Indiana University, where he graduated with his BS in Public Management and MS in Recreational Sports Administration. As the Director of Member Services, he currently oversees many of our front-line operations including the pro-shop, locker and equipment rentals, towel service, court reservations and memberships. When it’s time to relax and have a little fun, Jason enjoys road biking, playing guitar, hiking with family and watching movies.
Ali comes from the small town of Lunenburg, MA. A proud runner, she completed her first half marathon in 2015 and plans to add more to her schedule in the future. Planning is one of Ali’s strengths, as the Business Manager for MIT Recreation she keeps things in order and manages our day-to-day administrative tasks while working with our Director to maintain, plan and schedule many of our operations. She is a graduate of UMass Amherst with a BS in Exercise Science and Fitchburg State University with a Master’s in Business Administration. Ali loves spending time with her family including her son, an energetic toddler who keeps her busy. Her recipe for relaxation includes “some me time” and a good book.
Born and raised in Lincolnton, NC, Chris started his Aquatic career as a lifeguard at the local YMCA when he was 15. He later attended the University of North Carolina at Charlotte where he received his BS in Anthropology with a minor in Women’s and Gender Studies. After continuing to work with the YMCA for a few years in both North Carolina and Charlestown, Chris joined us as an Aquatic Manager in February 2015. He currently oversees our pool schedules, rentals and reservations for our expansive Aquatic Department. For fun, Chris enjoys rock climbing, Netflix, reading, ice skating, hiking, and kayaking.
Originally from Massachusetts, Ben has significant experience in the aquatics field and has been in and out of the water for the past 25 years. Ben received his BS in Sport and Movement Science with a concentration in Aquatic Recreation Management from Salem Sate University and his MS in Emergency Management from Anna Maria College. In 2004 he joined the MIT Recreation staff and continues to oversee one of the premier aquatic facilities in the northeast. He holds multiple certifications including Emergency Medical Responder Instructor, First Responder, ARC Water Safety, Lifeguard, CPR Health Care Provider, First Aid and MA Municipal Police Training Committee First Responder Instructor. Outside the natatorium, Ben enjoys spending time with his family and hiking.
Steph is the “woo” of recreation and you might just catch her chatting with students, patrons and staff around the facility. She manages to stay right in the action while keeping recreation in the loop and managing the department. Steph’s career progressed from teaching dance class at a young age to becoming a “fitness junkie” and group exercise instructor. Working with MIT Recreation was her first job out of college, when she graduated from The Ohio State University with her BA in Health and Wellness, then Northeastern University with her MA in Sports Leadership. As Director, Steph oversees the administration and management of all programming and operational aspects of aquatics, fitness, customer service and facility maintenance within our programs and consults with the leadership in Intramural Sports, Club Sports, Varsity Athletics, Physical Education and Facility Operations in the administration of DAPER programs and services. She takes a break from MIT life every now and then with hiking, SUP, trips to the beach, visiting friends and family, and defeating her husband at everything possible (except go-carts).
