MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research
Education and Public Outreach

EPO Program People

IRENE L. PORRO, EPO Scientist

Irene Porro is the Education and Public Outreach scientist at the MIT Kavli Institute (MKI). In her work, Irene is able to combine a background in physics and astrophysics, with an interdisciplinary approach to science learning and a strong commitment to promote science learning outside of the traditional classroom.  

Irene Porro obtained a Ph.D. in Space Science and Technology from the University of Padua in 1996. Her research work focused on ground and space-based stellar interferometry and was carried out during a three-year fellowship at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. In her early academic career she attended, first a student and then teaching assistant, the International Space University, a multidisciplinary program in space related disciplines, where she nourished and developed her interdisciplinary approach to science.

As the MKI EPO scientist, Irene's main goal is to create and promote out-of-school time (OST) initiatives to make science education resources available to urban youth. She contributes several years of experience in leading OST astronomy learning initiatives funded through the NASA Space Science EPO Program. She has been focusing on adapting and making available high-quality science education resources for use in OST, and in establishing partnerships with local OST organizations such as Boston 2-to-6 After-School Initiative, Gear Up in Boston, the Timothy Smith Network. These efforts have been bringing valuable science programming to OST environments, and provide motivated underserved youth with the opportunities and the tools to pursue high quality science learning.

Irene also collaborates with local educators to design and offer professional development programs that specifically meet the needs of Massachusetts' science teachers. One of her most successful teacher programs is an astrobiology course. Searching for life elsewhere in the universe is a very exciting topic that allows Irene to engage her audience in scientific inquiry out of curiosity and to expose teachers (and their students) to the interdisciplinary nature of science. (Irene's CV)

MARK HARTMAN, EPO Specialist

As someone with a background in science and experience in education, Mark's professional goal is to help link the education world with captivating research from the scientific community as a way to motivate interest in science and technology as a career and in every day life.

After graduating from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland with a bachelor of science in physics, he spent a year working in industry as a staff scientist for a small imaging company in Rochester, NY. He enjoyed the challenge of building optical prototypes and interacting directly with customers in a teaching capacity.

In 2001, he moved to Cambridge to study astronomy at Harvard University. His research focused on observational cosmology: what is the distribution of the intrinsic brightness of galaxies in the local universe? Why should you care? (Always a good question to ask...) This observation helps to constrain models of how gravity has created the structures we see in the universe (including us!) over the past 13.7 billion years. In addition, he worked with the Science Media Group at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory on a teacher training video series about physical science, and spent 10 hours per week for 3 years in the classroom of ninth grade physics teachers in the Cambridge public school system as part of the National Science Foundation "Graduate Students in K-12 Science Education" (GK-12) program. His goal as "classroom scientist" was to help the students see the connection of the science they were learning to the real world and as the foundation for cutting edge science and technology. Armed with this experience and a master's degree in astronomy, his work as an EPO specialist is aimed at showing the relevance of a scientific and quantitative viewpoint for every day life: he wants you to understand what the numbers in that USA Today poll are really telling you!