Our Mentoring Philosophy
A good mentor is critical for both personal success of the mentees and advancement of science. Souvik suffered from a lack of support as a graduate student. We are inspired by recent studies (American Psychological Association; Lorenzetti et al., 2019; 2030STEM) and aim to avoid the current unstructured processes of mentoring practiced in academia globally. Our approach entails four main tenets.
Compassion: It is the most important ingredient of a mentor to identify and resolve diverse needs of each mentee.
Motivation: Mentees would be encouraged to choose projects that they feel passionate about. They would be given necessary time to find out whether their project is interesting and motivating enough for them to pursue.
Health: Mentees would be encouraged to maintain a good work-life balance and to be routinely in contact with health professionals.
Career: Mentees would be encouraged to participate in annual career growth programs where they will evaluate what their future goals are and how are they working towards those.
Mentoring Plan
We are committed to mentor the lab members in a very structured manner.
Graduate Students: Using real-world and personal examples, we discuss how failure is inherent in scientific discourse and how to effectively cope with it. We focus on extensive literature surveys and discussions, encouraging members to choose projects they are genuinely excited about, as motivation is the key to success. There is a yearly plan designed for trainees that focuses on improving communication, acquiring new skill sets for professional development, and working towards a concrete career goal.
Postdoctoral Trainees: Postdocs will be encouraged to focus on their personal and career goals early during their training. The process will be tailored according to their interests in academic, industry, or other careers. For example, grant writing is essential in academia and so is networking in industry. For international trainees, it is the duty of the mentor and the organization to streamline work authorization/visa processes. We will work continuously with postdoc trainees to ensure that while they are contributing to science, they maintain a good work-life balance and learn to manage their time more efficiently during this very stressful period of their lives.
Research Assistants: They are here to gain research experience and develop skills so that they can pursue a career in industry, grad school, med school, or other jobs. This lab will give them a flexible platform to do so. Getting a reference letter should not be a hassle for a trainee. Your contribution in this lab will not be overlooked.
Interns: Since interns can only spend a short time in the laboratory, it becomes helpful for them if their projects are built on established protocols with less troubleshooting. It also helps their careers if they get authorship in publications. Souvik made sure that all of undergraduate trainees who worked with him, received appropriate authorships.
Mentoring Experience
Souvik was a mentor in the SUPER program which is a NSF-funded undergraduate research program at the University of Texas at Austin. Here, he had the privilege of mentoring undergraduate students, guiding them through an intensive and enriching 10-week training period.
As a Early Career Fellow and as a postdoc at UT Austin, he has mentored postdocs, graduate students, undergraduate students, and research assistants.