Lab Operations Staff

Francis Frain
Lab Support Services Analyst

Frankie Frain was born, raised, and continues to live in Westport, Massachusetts, a nice little community squeezed between some of the grossest urban areas you’ll ever visit.  Frankie graduated from Emerson’s film program in 2008 and completed two feature length comedy DV films during his time at the school.  He remains active with film production and animation.

Frankie worked at the Emerson’s IT HelpDesk and in the labs throughout his entire student career (with the exception of a semester in Los Angeles).  He currently works as an all-purpose technician for Lab Operations, creating and deploying new computers throughout the summer while giving attention to any other problems the lab machines or equipment may experience.  He is very approachable and easy to talk to, so feel free to find him and pick his brain! It could use a good picking.

Cyle Gage

Cyle has been around for awhile. He's worked as lab assistant, lab roamer, and web developer. Now he spearheads many LabOps projects, with Median as his primary focus. Cyle is responsible for many magic solutions to strange problems, and is often referred to as the "miracle-worker," very much akin to Scotty from Star Trek. He also does a large amount of miscellaneous projects for VMA, IT, and really anyone who needs help. For instance, he rebuilt the newmedia server for VMA, and made the amazing Lab Statistics and Information Division page. Incredible, this man. Cyle is also the office DJ, with 80s glam rock and soul music always on the playlist.

Anyway, if you ever get any questions or problems relating to Median, send them to Cyle. If you ever want to talk about Star Trek or video games or the 1986 Transformers movie, he's the one to seek out. Also, he's always speaking in the third person like right now. Cyle holds a BFA in Interactive Media from Emerson College.

Robin Hoyt
Application Specialist

Robin Hoyt was born and raised in Yorktown Heights, New York, a northern New York City suburb which is also home to IBM's T.J. Watson Research Center, and which was once home to Prodigy's national data center.  Robin spent many of her childhood hours breaking and fixing her parents' Mac and dreaming of becoming a radio DJ.  This inspired her to attend Tulane University, in the Tropic of New Orleans, where she became heavily involved in the campus radio, TV, and media oversight organizations.  Despite all this, she took only one communication course before graduating with a B.S. in Linguistics and returning to the frosty north.

Soon after, Robin rectified her lack of formal communications training by pursuing a Visual and Media Arts M.A. right here at Emerson.  Robin quickly changed her concentration from Audio to New Media and began working at the IT Help Desk and in the labs.  A year after graduating, Robin has returned to Emerson Lab Operations as a full-time staff member.  She is friendly, approachable, and always looking to help people out.  She will sometimes even bake them pie.

Daniel Leich
Lab Support Services Specialist

Daniel graduated in 2009 with a BA in Visual Media Arts, concentrating in Post Production from Emerson College.  After working throughout his undergrad for the IT Help Desk, he now services and maintains computers for Lab Operations, which includes build and deployment of Macintosh and Dual-OS environments within the labs.  In addition, he provides support for lab usage throughout the year, and works closely with TRF to help create a user-friendly environment for students and faculty using the dedicated video editing systems in 180 Tremont.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding lab computer systems, environments, workflows, or just want to chat about tech, feel free to contact him.

Gregory Pretti
Lab Services Coordinator

Greg Pretti was born in Canton, Massachusetts. He has lived there and in Pennsylvania as well. He has always been obsessed with learning anything at all, but his passion for writing may one day doom him to settle down and study one thing into mastery. He loves science and psychology, and this constantly creeps into his writing – which doesn’t border on prolific, but never actually stops, either.  

He graduated in 2007 with a BFA in Writing. He will soon pursue another degree, but until then he considers Wikipedia an enormous, and very free, university of everything.  

Greg worked at the Help Desk for three years before he became a full time staff member. At Lab Operations he manages the student employees, assists faculty with technology and teaching, and maintains the non-computer parts of the labs all over campus. During Orientation week he becomes unstuck in time and forms a sort of blur, the beginning and end of which cannot be located until October.

Bret Kulakovich
Lab Operations Manager

Bret has worked as Multimedia Specialist for Academic Computing at Emerson from 1996 to 1999, and later as Application Specialist for ITG. Before returning to Emerson in 2002, Bret was a Partner at Bonfire Productions, where he managed international and domestic projects for top-level executives in the Fortune 500. At Bonfire, he created training curriculum and business process reorganization programs for multimedia teams within client companies.

Bret has a strong production and project management background, and formal design training. He holds a BFA in Photographic and Electronic Imaging from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, and has completed his coursework for a masters in Visual Media Arts at Emerson.