Contact information

From GersteinInfo

Latest revision as of 23:23, 2 October 2022

The main contact information for Mark Gerstein is at

(More information is on this page, as it is easier to edit .)

More Info on Zoom

• Mark's personal Zoom Room: https://yale.zoom.us/my/mXXX.XXXXXXXX (where mXXX.XXXXXXXX is replaced by a string that's obvious.)
• Or Telephone 203-432-9666 with Meeting ID: 777 XXX XXXX (where I'll tell you the final 7 digits - think about Pi). Also, there's no extra passcode that you type in after the first code. So you just type in 777XXXXXXX## (after calling) and then you're in. This is made to be as simple as possible. 

More Info on Paper Mail and Physical Location

• Note: Bass 432A is NOT at Bass library. It is in the Bass Center, located on Science Hill. (See https://map.yale.edu/place/building/BASS.)

• If we have a meeting at the medical school, it may be at 300 George.

• Address for FEDEX

Mark Gerstein
Bass 432A, MBB, Yale U.
266 Whitney Ave. 
New Haven, CT 06511

• If you are trying to meet me in Bass, I often in Bass 434 in meetings. Also, check-in Bass 424.

• You sometimes need authorization to get in the building after 6 PM. If so, arrange to call me, so I can come down to meet you.

• Also, please make sure you announce yourself at my office. In particular, if you're waiting outside Bass 432, knock on the inner office (Bass 432A). Don't just sit on sofa outside in the corridor.

More Info on Phone and Fax

• If I give you my cell number (currently ending in x508), you can text it if you need me quickly.
• I have many other phone numbers cell and otherwise (i.e. 203-xxx-x559, xxx-xxx-x230, xxx-xxx-x836, xxx-xxx-x188 and xxx-xxx-x587‬). I may call from them but best not to use them to initiate calls or texts.
  • The most likely numbers for me to call from are x508, x230, x836, and public cell (x858).
  • Even more detail on this.
  • Unfortunately, x508 doesn't work for international texts, so I'll probably give you x230 in this context.

More Info on Email

More Info on My Normal Email

• Philosophy

Found this quote on the web and thought it useful here: "Electronic Mail is not secure, may not be read every day, and should not be used for urgent or sensitive issues."

• Confidential information
  • My email goes into a variety of fairly public servers (e.g. gmail). Consequently, I do not like sending personal information (such as important computer passwords and credit-card or social security numbers) over unencrypted email. I also do like sending scanned versions of my signature.
  • If you want this information, you can get it via contacting my assistant. She can either tell it to you over the phone or fax it or mail it to you. You might want to refrain from sending me information like this to me over email.
  • If you really want to send me confidential information I can use Signal or proton mail. (But please give me a heads up on this via regular email.)
• No Web forms

In general, please try to avoid subscribing my main addresses on contact.gerstein.info to any type of web form - eg for a journal subscription or a rec. letter. I am quite serious about this! It will really annoy me if you do this! I am taking this step basically to try to alleviate the large amount of e-mail congestion I suffer. Use my assistant address.

• Email addresses to avoid or to use selectively
  • Do not use mark ((at)) gersteins.net, mbg ((at)) pobox.com, or mbg ((at)) csb.yale.edu (which are all defunct).
  • Mark.Gerstein ((at)) Yale.edu works but has issues with spam filters.
  • piaa ((at)) gersteinlab.org goes to me and my assistant so is not that confidential.
  • pi ((at)) gersteinlab.org also goes to my assistant and is used just for journal submissions.
• I am slow responding to email.
  • Text if you need a fast response.
  • I read messages sent to me via lists and via CC (or BCC) much more slowly than those directly to one of my two canonical email addresses. Unfortunately, it is rather common for me to get overwhelmed with professional emails. I know I am sometimes slow in responding, so if you want to reach me quickly, try to use text route.
  • In relation to my slowness, you might also want to reflect on an email auto-response I was considering using.

Don't Use Skype, Linkedin, Twitter in Preference to Email

Do not try to "email me" through linkedin, twitter direct message, Skype chat, etc. Best to send a traditional email. You are, of course, welcome to follow me on Twitter or link to me on LinkedIn but I don't check direct messages that often. Likewise, if we schedule a "phone chat" over skype, I may use the chat feature during the call, but please don't try to contact me using this afterwards. Use email.

More Info on the PleasePageMark Email

This is deprecated but still works: Email to the pleasepagemark address is fast but not instantaneous. Also, for the message to work, you need to have both the right to address (i.e. pleasepagemark) and correct subject line. If you just put blue in the subject and send to my normal email address, nothing happens. Likewise, if you just send to pleasepagemark without the right subject. The idea is here is to make sending these messages harder, to cut down on spam and abuse.