The Office

Our address

We are now located on the 10th floor but the Admin office where mail goes is 2301. Our full mailing address is:
Massachusetts General Hospital
Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging
Bldg. 149, 13th Street, CNY 2301
Charlestown, MA 02129

Directions to our location

You can find directions to our location here:
https://surfer.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/fswiki/DirectionsCNY


LCN Orientation for New Staff

Welcome to the lab! You have likely already received many instructions from MGH HR and/or Martinos Center administrators (Jill & Matt). Please follow all of their directions and make sure to complete all the required training & appointments they mention.

Here you'll find more information than you need about our lab and getting started here. Please read through everything, however, below is a short list of the most important things to give your attention:

  1. Give your supervisor and/or Leah/Allison your MGH employee ID # (on the back of your ID card), the 6 digit # on the back of your ID in the top right corner, Partners username, your MGH email address, a photo of yourself and your birthday.
  2. If you are sitting at a desktop machine in the lab, read the Your Computer section.

  3. Complete IRB training (if it applies), wet lab training (if it applies), and Fire Safety training as soon as possible. See the Training section.

  4. If you plan to use the MRI scanners, sign up for the mri-scan mailing list once you have your Partners email.

  5. If you're using a laptop and connecting to the Partners network (via wired connection or non-guest Partners wifi), that laptop must be encrypted. Read more here.

Martinos Center Account

In order to log into your computer in our lab, log in to the scanners, or get access to files on the network, you need a Martinos Center login. This is different from your Partners login which was assigned to you when your employee/nonemployee paperwork was approved (and was likely given to you during orientation or by Jill Smith). As of 2016, the same username will be used for Martinos Center as is used by Partners but the passwords will be different unless you opt to sync them (the Martinos Center helpdesk will email you information on how to do this).

Allison, Leah or another supervisor can request an account for you on this website. To do so, they will need your current email address, your Partners username (it will contain your initials and a number, i.e. AAS41), your MGH ID #, and a picture of you. Note that you are not allowed to forward Partners or Martinos Center emails to gmail, yahoo, or hotmail addresses.

Your Martinos Center account can take up to 48 hours to be created. Once your Martinos Center account is created, you will have an nmr.mgh.harvard.edu email alias that forwards to your Partners email account. However, you won't be able to send emails from this 'nmr' email address.

Lab Basics

Important Phone Numbers


Learning the Basics

MRI Information

Dictionary of terms: http://www.mr-tip.com/serv1.php?type=db1&dbs=Pulse%20Sequence

Intro to MRI: http://www.mritutor.org/mritutor/

Helpful Website for Intro to MRI Physics: https://www.mriquestions.com/index.html

Martinos Center documentation for Siemens scanners: http://www.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/~benner/siemens/N4/index.shtml (Allison had this transferred elsewhere; she needs to find it and link it here)

Neuroanatomy Information

Unix & Scripting Tutorials

If you are unfamiliar with the UNIX operating system, there are many online tutorials. Here are a few:
http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Teaching/Unix/
http://www.fmrib.ox.ac.uk/fslcourse/unix_intro/
https://supportweb.cs.bham.ac.uk/documentation/tutorials/docsystem/build/tutorials/unixscripting/unixscripting.html

Let Allison know if you are new to UNIX and she'll give you a few more resources.

Freesurfer

Documentation for FreeSurfer is on the wiki:
https://surfer.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/fswiki/FreeSurferWiki

This page documents how to teach yourself FreeSurfer by conducting your own online course:
https://surfer.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/fswiki/TeachYourselfFreeSurfer

Why & How Schedule

A lecture series that teaches the basics of a wide variety of topics, this may be on hold during COVID-19:
https://gate.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/wiki/whynhow/index.php/Main_Page

Other Informative Talks

On Wednesdays, there are usually "Brainmap" lectures from guest speakers on a wide variety of interesting topics in the field of neuroscience. You can sign up to the brainmap emails or Allison/Leah can forward these to you until you're able to sign up yourself.

Also on Wednesdays, at 2 pm, we have our weekly lab meetings. Sometimes we invite guest speakers, sometimes we listen to presentations from our lab members and sometimes we discuss important lab admin and decisions.

On Friday afternoons, our center organizes Science on Tap which is usually a social time with a short talk from someone at the center on their research. At the moment this is being hosted on Zoom every week. These announcements usually go to everyone with an nmr email address. Until yours is up and running, Leah/Allison can forward these announcements to you.


MGH-related Living & Commuting

Peoplesoft

Partners website to view your paycheck, sign up for health benefits and discount MBTA passes as well as anything else HR-related: https://peoplesoftportal.partners.org/login/login.asp?CTAuthMode=BASIC

Temporary Housing

Most require a minimum 30 day stay and provide furnished housing.

National Corporate Housing
The West End Apartments
(Formerly Equity Corp. Housing)
(617) 948-9876
5 Longfellow Pl, Ste. 102 Boston MA
Adjacent to MGH campus
www.nationalcorporatehousing.com

Furnished Quarters
(617) 236-4908
221 Mass. Avenue, Boston, MA
www.furnishedquarters.com

Oakwood Temporary Housing
(617) 723-8050
1 India Street, 2nd floor, Boston, MA
www.oakwood.com
Ask for Maryellen Daly or Deidre Fistori

Interim Housing Solutions
(866) 279-4471
http://www.interimhousingsolutions.com
National program matches individuals with furnished, short-term apartment rental.

Savin Hill area has some nice temporary housing. Contact Mary Lynch at mary.t.lynch@verizon.net

Don't know anyone who has used this site but Louis came across it:
http://www.athomeinboston.org/

Commuting

Parking

MGH Commuter Services Their website 617-724-6588

Discount T pass

For rates, see this website.

You can sign up for a discounted T pass through your Peoplesoft account. After signing in, click on HRMS production, Self Service, Payroll and Compensation, then MBTA Pass Enrollment. You must sign up on or before the second Thursday of the month PRIOR to use (ex. sign up June 10th for a July pass). The Martinos Admin Office should have your pass a few days before the 1st of the month. If you sign up after the 2nd Thursday of the month, or the Martinos Admin Office does not have your pass, you must get it from the Commuter Services office on the main campus (232 Wang).

Paychecks are deducted on the third paycheck of the month.

If you initially get a discounted T pass from MGH, but later decide that you want to drive to work everyday and park in the CNY199 Parking Garage, you will have to give up your discounted pass. (You cannot sign up for monthly parking at the parking office in the garage until you have canceled your T pass in PeopleSoft.) MGH subsidizes the T pass on the basis that that is how you get to work everyday. If you sign up for monthly parking at the garage, they know you are no longer using the T to get to work, so you cannot keep the discounted pass. Unfortunately you cannot just add money at a T ticket kiosk to your existing CharlieCard that you got from MGH. The MGH Parking and Commuter Services office said this is because our cards are special corporate cards that are encrypted, so you can't add your own money to it. Allison M. went to the MBTA ticket office at North Station in March 2015 and they confirmed this. You must simply get a new CharlieCard. (You do not have to give them your old MGH card, and Carol didn't say that we had to hand them back into her either.)

Benefits for Non-drivers

Guaranteed Ride Home: If you take the bus, subway, commuter rail, carpool, vanpool, bike or walk to work, you can receive a free ride home in the event of an emergency or unscheduled overtime. Now you can ease your fears of being stuck at work because of something that may happen once or twice a year. MGH Parking and Commuter Services pays all transportation costs, including tolls and gratuity the program is completely free for you! Register now to get your voucher number for PlanetTran, the Nation's first environmentally friendly livery service. Visit ABCTMA.COM to learn more.

Ridematching: Ever wonder if you may have a neighbor or co-worker whom you could share a ride into work with once or twice a week? You can use our on-line ridematching system to find out if others who live and work near you are interested in sharing a ride in a carpool or vanpool.

Cycling and Walking Rewards: Our “Workout to Work” program provides employees who bike or walk to work. Each month when you submit your miles, biked or walked, to a transportation organization called A Better City Transportation Management Association (ABC TMA), you will be rewarded with free safety equipment and chances to win other prizes.

Vanpool Subsidy: You can receive $220 over six months from the ABC TMA for joining a vanpool. A vanpool of 9-15 riders is the most affordable way to commute to work from New Hampshire, Central/Western Massachusetts and Cape Cod.

Carpool Subsidy: You can receive $210 over six-months when you join an existing carpool or form a new carpool. By covering up to $35 in fuel for six months this program helps reduce your costs of commuting to work.

Express Yourself: If you drive alone you can receive up to $100 per month for three months to purchase an MBTA Express Bus, Private Bus, or MBTA Commuter Boat pass. This can cut the monthly cost of your commute by almost 50%.

REGISTER IN THESE FREE PROGRAMS ONLINE AT www.abctma.com

Bicycle Parking

As of the end of October, 2014, there is a bicycle cage with ID access inside the garage across from Building 149. You must go to the garage office (hours: Mon-Fri, 8AM-4PM) and fill out a form with your bike make, model and serial number to get a decal for your bike and to get access to the cage. There is a one time $10 fee. Unless you have a decal, MGH security has the right to remove your bike without notice. The bicycle racks in front of the building are supposed to be reserved for visitors.