Career Tools

Mentor Training and Support

Effective mentoring is an invaluable competency in academia, research, and industry. Purposefully developing this competency can be a key asset in professional development and the job search process. The UChicago PME supports the development of this central competency through intentional and sustained training and opportunities to practice mentoring skills in the context of research. You can find more information on the Mentoring Training Resources and Mentorship Opportunities webpage.

• The UChicago PME/BSD Postdoc Mentor Training Series offers postdoctoral researchers the opportunity to sharpen and perfect research mentoring competencies specifically calibrated to the needs and opportunities of their career stage. Using an evidence-based curriculum from the Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research (CIMER), the series explores topics such as effective communication, aligning expectations, fostering independence and self-efficacy. For more information, please contact Vipul Sharma or Laura Rico-Beck.
• In addition to research group mentoring, the UChicago PME offers several mentoring options working with graduate, undergraduate, and high school students in programs such as the UChicago PME REU, the UChicago PME City Colleges Program, the After School Matters STEM Lab Internship, and TeachQuantum.
• Exemplary postdoctoral mentors are recognized and celebrated by the UChicago PME annually with the Maria Lastra Excellence in Mentoring Awards.

Leadership and Management Training

The L-MAP, Leadership and Management in Action Program (L-MAP), is a new active-learning training program for postdocs to build a leadership, management, and inclusive teamwork skillset. L-MAP introduces postdocs to the interpersonal and psychological foundations of leading teams and managing people. It responds to the unique position of these trainees, who may be practicing leadership for the first time and who typically lack formal authority within the research environment. This training program was developed based on real-world research on the leadership and team dynamics challenges that postdocs regularly encounter in the scientific research environment. Using real-world scenarios and current research on leadership and team dynamics, L-MAP highlights professional behaviors and communication strategies that can be used in a variety of leadership and management scenarios. The L-MAP training program uses an active-learning format based on discussion of authentic case studies drawn from the experiences of postdocs from diverse backgrounds. Case study training facilitates learning through active problem-solving and allows participants to change attitudes, behaviors, and decisions related to conflict management, communication strategies and navigating organizational hierarchies.

Trainees work in teams on experiential case studies and activities in the L-MAP curriculum, led by a facilitator with expertise in leadership training. The program meets weekly for 6 weeks and is capped with a writing a leadership statement. Trainee participants are selected through an application process.

There are 6 units in the L-MAP training program

1. Professionalism and Professional Identity
2. Leading Without Authority
3. Negotiation
4. Working in Teams
5. Inclusive Organizational Cultures
6. Writing your Leadership Statement

Each unit builds on interpersonal and communication skills presented in previous units. Participants begin by practicing discrete skills early in the program and move toward analyzing increasingly complex leadership scenarios toward the end.

Development and pilot testing of L-MAP was done at Washington University in St. Louis and supported by a grant from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund.