Education
Guiding Growth: The Role of Mentorship in Advancing Biological Science Careers
- September 16, 2024
In science, mentoring is an established and structured part of career progression. From the tangible transfer of skills and knowledge to the more abstract tasks of building confidence, perseverance, and feeling valued, mentors’ support is vital for the success of young scientists.
We’re proud of our faculty’s generosity with their time, and of the deep attention they give to trainees and students at all levels. We invest in mentoring at MDI Biological Laboratory because we believe in its fundamental importance, and we are grateful for our community’s support for that foundational element of the Lab’s mission.
It’s helped to build the early career of Emily Spaulding, Ph.D., the newest addition to our faculty roster.
Emily spent four years under the engaged eye of an accomplished mentor, MDI Bio Lab’s Dustin Updike, Ph.D. As a postdoc in his research group, she quickly bloomed into accomplishment and recognition herself, publishing research and technically advanced imaging that upended some conventional thinking about the inner workings of the cell.
“It wasn’t just that Dustin passed on technical expertise,” she says. “It’s everything else that also comes into play as a research scientist — how to move through the grant writing process, helping determine which conferences I should apply to, encouraging me when I felt unsure.”
Now Spaulding is establishing her first research group, a major milestone in any investigator’s career. She credits Dustin’s mentoring skills as a decisive factor in choosing MDI Bio Lab to be her scientific home.
As a second career scientist — Spaulding spent six years as a high school teacher — she had to work hard to overcome imposter syndrome. “I had so much encouragement, especially at the times when I was feeling that perhaps I didn’t belong, or I was doubting myself, and that made a huge impact,” she says. “Sometimes it’s hard to believe where I am now, when it wasn’t ‘in the plan’ I had for myself.”
Spaulding adds that mentoring isn’t just a top-down process. Colleagues in the lab and across the institution are just as influential, she says; helping refine presentation techniques, serving as a safe place for questions or reflection and sharing tips and tricks of laboratory benchwork.
Even as a Principal Investigator running her own laboratory, Spaulding still seeks out advice and productive criticism. With the unending curiosity of a true scientist, she’s adamant that she’ll never stop learning and will always need mentors. “We know that mentorship is what people need to succeed,” she says. “Fortunately, others want to be good mentors. They want to help out.”
Today, Spaulding is becoming a mentor herself, learning to match her style to the person she’s working with. Her Research Assistant, Lio Cook, says that attentiveness is paying off.
“Being an RA is my happy spot right now. I’ve not followed a traditional, linear career path and that’s a little different to others come to the lab,” Lio says. “Emily is great, and we’ve figured out a method that works for both of us. I need time to process information, and she gives me that, which I appreciate.”
At MDI Bio Lab we talk often of training the next generation of bright, determined scientists. And when we see the student become the mentor, it’s a gratifying proof of concept.
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