Staff spotlight: Kayla “KB” Burt

Featured in September 2026 newsletter

In her job as a Data Analyst in Institutional Research (IR), Kayla “KB” Burt keeps busy helping answer the questions that MIT leaders, faculty, and staff ask to guide their long-term strategic planning.

Not only does she build databases and tools to help members of the MIT community solve complex issues and uncover trends — outside of work, she’s also pursuing a PhD, part time, in Information Science at the University at Buffalo.

“I would like to go back to getting some sleep at some point,” Burt joked. “But for this moment in my life, I think these are really valuable opportunities for me, so I think of myself as really fortunate.”

Burt initially thought basketball might be a way to help pay for college. But then she discovered some old clubs in the garage and took them to a driving range, where a woman suggested that Burt try for a golf scholarship. Burt took up the challenge and spent many hours chipping into her mother’s flower bed. Her practice paid off, earning her a spot on the Le Moyne College golf team.

After graduating from Le Moyne in 2017, Burt’s plan was to take a year off before going back to school for physical therapy. During that year, however, she took a job in the Le Moyne admissions office.

“I realized that I was very good at working with data,” she said. “I’ve always been pretty good at math and statistics, and I found that I could combine that with this interest I have in higher education.”

Burt joined MIT in 2021 as an analyst at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Today she works with Sloan, other offices and departments across MIT, and IR colleagues on longer-term projects such as creating a database of startups (from as far back as the 1960s) that were founded by MIT community members or that had technology transfer agreements with the Institute. The database, drawn from MIT offices and outside resources, will provide a benchmark to guide strategic goals to accelerate translation and entrepreneurship for the inaugural vice provost for translation and entrepreneurship, a new position announced by Provost Chandrakasan in August.

“Access to information alone is insufficient without guidance that supports understanding and informed decision-making,” she said when discussing what she’s learned from her information science studies.

This past spring the Institute honored Burt with an MIT Excellence Award for Innovative Solutions. The Association for Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T) also named Burt as a recipient of their 2026 ASIS&T New Leaders Award.

“KB’s work exemplifies what we strive to do in Institutional Research by bringing together data from a variety of sources, collecting new data where we don’t have existing data, and presenting it in a way that can meaningfully inform strategic decision-making among leaders at MIT,” said IR Director Jon Schwarz.

Three questions with Kayla Burt, Institutional Research

1. What’s an example of how your work helps advance MIT’s mission or support members of the community?

A big part of how I see my role as a data analyst is removing barriers between people and information. Last year, I worked with an office that was engaged in strategic planning and needed a clearer way to bring together data and information that could inform that work. I pulled from a range of institutional and external sources, identified what was most relevant, and synthesized it into a resource they could use. When I shared it with them, they told me that one of the things they appreciated most was my ability to make complex information feel digestible and accessible. That comment will always stay with me because it reflects what I value most about the work and the type of analyst that I strive to be each day.

2. What are you curious about? What do you want to learn more about?

I love that I get to work at an institution where curiosity is encouraged and celebrated. Given my work in Institutional Research, my doctoral program, and my part-time work with Reflective Educational Research and the Apple Distinguished Schools Program, I would especially like to learn more about how faculty and students are thinking about the relationship between education and technology in their own scholarship. It would be exciting to learn from people approaching those questions from different disciplines and to see where their work might challenge or deepen the way I think about my own.

3. What’s your favorite spot on campus?

One of my favorite places on campus is the Hayden Library, especially the courtyard. It is such a peaceful place to work, but I also love the Open Space. It is a beautiful area on its own, but I especially appreciate all of the programming. Between movies, food trucks, networking events, and watching people simply spending time together, it feels like a place where the community really comes to life.