mentorship
sciencewoman | November 17, 2009Recently I had the opportunity to attend a talk by Gail Cassell, a member of the National Academies' Institute of Medicine, and one of the authors of the NAS report Rising Above the Gathering Storm. Dr. Cassell is currently Vice President of Infectious Diseases for Eli Lilly. She was previously the chair of the Department of Microbiology at the University of Alabama Schools of Medicine and Dentistry at Birmingham.
Dr. Cassell has also done a great deal of thinking about the importance of mentoring, networking, and professional development opportunities in academia and industry. Here are some…
sciencewoman | October 8, 2009 After tropical forests are cleared for agriculture and then abandoned, secondary forests regrow on the site. But how do plant species composition, biomass and soil organic matter differ through this succession of primary forest, pasture, and secondary forest? Employing tools of biogeochemistry, ecosystem ecology, and land-use/land-cover change to examine those and related questions, Erika Marin-Spiotta earned a Ph.D. in environmental science, policy, and management from the University of California at Berkeley, a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and…
sciencewoman | July 21, 2009Time to move hairy Ethan off the top of the page. Fortunately, there's a couple of great questions from readers qued up in my email account. And maybe by the time they get posted, I'll be ready to get back to my course design series. First up, loyal commenter GymLabRab wonders how to mentor a new colleague. GLR writes:
Hi ScienceWoman,
Thanks for your blog!
I just became department chair on July 1. Too bad it means more work but no more pay!
I'm wondering...what makes a good department chair? It seems from your conversation about your review, your chair is fairly hands-off and doesn't do…
skookumchick | April 6, 2009I like many, many things about my department. But I am a little frustrated about the lack of formal-ish mentoring present. It's a little awkward -- we had a couple of regular opportunities, like monthly lunches with the department head, or the senior faculty chatting with the junior faculty at a breakfast every so often, but these seem to have disappeared, for some very good reasons that I'm not going to get in to here.
The point is that I need some help, I've been asking senior faculty for help, and nothing continues to happen.
Okay then. So in November, I started working on my own…
sciencewoman | March 26, 2009Mary Ann Mason has a column in this week's Chronicle of Higher Education describing the importance of role models and mentors for women graduate students. Though Zuska recently wrote a provocative post that argued that "the problem of motherhood" might be a red herring for those interested in increasing the representation of women in science, Mason's column provides some data that suggest the problem of motherhood is very real.
Role models, particularly ones with children, can make the difference in whether a female graduate student takes the next big step along the tenure track. While…
sciencewoman | March 15, 2009The theme for this month's Scientiae carnival asks us to talk about a challenging point in our lives and describe how we overcame the adversity. Did we have help along the way, and are we better scientists for having been through the trial by fire? Truthfully, I'd have to say that the last two years have been the most challenging of my professional life. I don't think anyone could be prepared for the combination of first-time motherhood and a new tenure track job. I certainly wasn't. But I haven't gotten past that challenge yet, and I've been blogging about it along the way. Thus, a better…