Mentorship philosophy
I love mentoring! My mentorship strategy follows these ten central tenets:
- My goal is to facilitate every trainee to reach their career goals, regardless of what they may be. We will work to build broadly applicable skills for any career.
- Mistakes are expected. The best education often happens from a failed experiment.
- Everyone works at their own pace. Don’t judge your full game by others’ highlight reels.
- I have no work hour expectations, nor do I expect a certain number of completed experiments per week. I want you to work when you feel you are most productive. Science is a team sport so maintaining good routines when others are available to assist will help foster success.
- Weekly mentoring meetings (at a minimum) to discuss data, experiment planning, career goals and development, grant writing and manuscript preparation.
- Scientific integrity is paramount. I expect all experiments and analyses to be well documented in a timely fashion. There will be no data manipulation to achieve a desired result. We only strive for added knowledge regardless of its fitting into a narrative we have already constructed.
- Everyone treats each other with equity and respect. I love humor, but I will not tolerate racist, sexist or bigoted comments of any type.
- Communication is essential. I will promptly reply to emails, and I expect you to do the same. Similarly, I encourage scientific dissemination and will always support your presentation at national and international conferences where applicable.
- Science is hard, and some self troubleshooting is critical. My expectation is first you try to reason out the error/issue. Second, look it up on the internet. Third, we are all here for each other, so do not toil away in silent frustration; ask me or other lab-mates.
- Most importantly, take time for yourself. Have fun in lab and outside of lab!
Diversity and inclusion
We want the lab environment to be a welcoming and encouraging place for all people.
Fun!
