“Great mentors are inspiring, instill confidence, and help you see the bigger picture. Great mentors do not aspire to create copies of themselves, instead they recognize the value, strength, and aspiration of each individual and actively help them achieve their personal career goals. Great mentors launch you on the path of becoming an established independent researcher and future collaborator.”
Mentoring graduate students and postdoctoral scholars is not part of the curriculum in graduate schools. It’s a role that is passed on from one generation of faculty to the next.
Goals of the PDA Postdoctoral Mentoring Award
Support high-quality mentors by providing public recognition of their mentoring excellence, both to raise their profile within the university community and to help them attract strong future postdocs and graduate students.
Provide a positive forum for UCLA postdoctoral scholars to discuss the impact of mentoring in their work, and to express gratitude to remarkable mentors who have gone above and beyond the call of duty in helping them develop successful careers.
Enable the university to identify and recognize faculty who are excellent mentors to their postdoctoral researchers and other trainees. Mentoring has its foundations in research, teaching, and service; therefore, exceptional mentors typically represent the highest expression of the goals of the university community.
Empower future postdoctoral scholars in selecting prospective postdoctoral mentors who have a proven track record of successful mentoring relationships with trainees.
To promote the importance of mentoring as the interactions between faculty mentors and postdoctoral scholars play a key role in the development of a postdoc.
Nominations
Nominees must be a current faculty member at UCLA. A nomination must come from a current or recent postdoctoral researcher at UCLA. The postdoc may nominate a faculty member regardless of whether that faculty member serves as their primary formal advisor. Only one nomination package will be considered per faculty nominee. If multiple postdocs wish to nominate the same faculty member, they must prepare and cosign a single nomination package.
Nomination requirements: The postdoc must provide the information requested in the Excellence in Postdoctoral Mentoring Award Nomination Form (Google Form), as well as a nomination letter of no more than 800 words describing the impact of the nominee’s mentorship on their postdoctoral experience (See selection criteria below). The letter can be entered into the google form or sent by email.
Submit nominations no later than 5:00 PM on 8/15/2024. Questions related to nominations can be sent to the Mentoring Award Committee Chair, Tanya Gupta (pdaucla@g.ucla.edu).
Selection criteria
Awardees will be selected by the executive-board of the PDA at UCLA, based on standards for postdoctoral mentoring excellence outlined by the National Postdoctoral Association. Excellence must go beyond activities that are set by contract as the duties of a postdoc mentor, such as individual meetings once a week, providing feedback on manuscripts, allowing postdocs to develop a research program or take time off (PTO or sick days).
Excellence in mentorship refers to a mentor that:
- Sets expectations and goals that were discussed and agreed with the postdoc.
- Can articulate a mentorship philosophy and plan that reflects on a supportive and healthy work environment.
- Promotes ethical behavior for conducting research, including compliance with institutional and federal regulations.
- Adjusts behavior according with the academic, personal and professional goals and needs of the postdoc.
- Recognize the existence of different career options for postdocs, and provides assistance and time to explore those alternatives.
- Fosters wellbeing, respecting boundaries in terms of work-life balance.
- Maintains effective communication with the postdoc(s), based on trust and mutual respect.
- Promotes postdoc(s) research self-efficacy by providing sufficient opportunities to acquire the skills necessary to become an independent expert in their field.
- Promotes professional development by encouraging (and/or financially supporting) postdocs to attend professional meetings, provide chances of networking and allowing the postdoc to spend time in related activities.
- Reflects and takes concrete actions to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion in their field, respecting and embracing postdoc differences in background and trajectory.
Finalists will be identified based on the first round of nominations, and further nomination materials (including reference letters from other postdocs and/or graduate students) will be requested from the primary nominator to establish the breadth of the nominee’s mentoring history.
About the Postdoctoral Mentoring Awards
In 2012, the Society of Postdoctoral Scholars began honoring exemplary faculty mentors in recognition of the importance of excellent mentorship for postdoctoral research success. Today, through the Excellence in Postdoctoral Mentoring Award the Postdoctoral Association at UCLA continues that tradition.
UCLA faculty members are honored at the Postdoctoral Scholars & Mentors Awards Ceremony to express gratitude for their remarkable mentorship of postdoctoral scholars. Twenty-four faculty were nominated and two were selected to receive the award which is meant to recognize faculty who:
- act as positive role models
- develop a supportive lab or work environment
- collaborate on the research project
- encourage confidence and creativity
- foster excellent written and verbal communication skills
- help establish professional networks at this campus and others
- actively support the transition from postdoc to independent research or other careers
2024 Excellence in Postdoctoral Mentoring Award
We also honored UCLA faculty members who have gone above and beyond the call of duty in helping postdoctoral scholars develop successful careers.
2024 Nominees
- Elaheh Ahmadi, Electrical and Computer Engineering
- Kai-Wei Chang, Computer Science
- Anne Churchland, Neurobiology
- Mansoureh Eghbali, Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine
- Elisa Franco, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
- Anthony P. Heaney, Endocrinology
- Eric Hoek, Civil and Environmental Engineering
- Yin-Ing Hser, Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences
- Chen Jun, Bioengineering
- Richard Kaner, Chemistry and Biochemistry
- Alexander Kusenko, Physics and Astronomy
- Kathryn Leifheit, Pediatrics
- Matthew Nava, Chemistry
- Elsa Ordway, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
- Nanyun Peng, Computer Science
- Karen Reue, Human Genetics
- Andreas Schwingshackl, Pediatrics-Critical Care
- Jennifer Silvers, Psychology
- Xia Yang, Integrative Biology and Physiology