Sharona Bollinger

I am an admissions and marketing coordinator at MIT’s Leaders for Global Operations.

Sharona Bollinger works as an admissions and marketing coordinator at MIT’s Leaders for Global Operations program (LGO), a program split between the School of Engineering and the Sloan School of Management. Sharona moved to Boston from Atlanta in 2017. After earning a Master’s in film studies, she hoped to work in higher education. Initially, that meant a stint in human resources at Harvard Law School. Eventually she began working half-time at LGO before her job evolved into a full-time position. She’s been at MIT for nearly four years.  

The Leaders for Global Operations program is a unique one, designed for students interested in tackling business with an engineering mindset. Graduates receive both an MBA and a Master’s of Science. Sharona says her favorite time of year is when LGO starts rolling out its acceptances; During those months, she checks a list each morning and tracks who’s made their decision. “It validates the work that comes behind it and before it,” she said.

In the last couple of years, Sharona has also gotten involved with staff committees at MIT, joining the School of Engineering’s Staff Advice & Implementation Committee in the Diversity Equity and Inclusion Subcommittee and the Working Group for Support Staff (WGSS). “I’m becoming a lot more tuned into various staff issues at MIT,” she said. “Something that I’m increasingly interested in is understanding the role of staff at MIT and how we can get better at advocating for ourselves.”

Outside of work, Sharona spends much of her time watching the films she once studied; she rents them regularly at Video Underground in Boston’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood. She favors period pieces. “They’re really interesting documents of how any time in history is perceived by a different time in history, and also the aesthetics and the costume and the architecture is always over the top,” she said.

Sharona also gardens, growing tomatoes and sprouting seedlings under grow lights in her shadowy apartment. Unfortunately, the sunniest window in her home is also her cat’s favorite. “He won’t share it. So, I bought some grow lights hoping I can expand my gardening even more.”