Ph.D. student mentoring statement

Advising Statement

Louis M. Mansky, Ph.D.

Professor and Director

University of Minnesota – Twin Cities

As a mentor, I work extremely hard to maintain an inspiring and intellectually stimulating scientific environment that motivates trainees (i.e., predoctoral and postdoctoral students) to achieve at a high level (sometimes at a level of achievement that a trainee was not aware they were capable of achieving). My individual mentoring approach strives to guide each trainee in understanding their strengths and weaknesses and developing effective strategies for enhancing their strengths while simultaneously diminishing their weaknesses. Using this mentoring strategy allows each trainee to develop successful technical and critical thinking skills, as well as effective written and oral communication skills, in order to provide important career development experiences that serve as a crucial foundation for career advancement.

Here in this advising statement, I have endeavored to clearly identify the expectations and responsibilities that help foster the professional career development of each trainee in our research group.

Research Goals

Trainees are expected create and maintain short-term and long-term research goals, and establish realistic timelines for achieving these goals.
Trainees are expected to advance their research projects and develop complete data sets that result in the submission and publication of first-authored publications.
Trainees are not guaranteed first-authorship on manuscripts that are submitted after their depature from the lab.
Trainees that submit their work to me will be provided with responses and feedback in a timely manner (1 week or less), within the duties and constraints of my other responsibilities. I endeavor to review and return documents within a week of submission, unless other arrangements have be made in advance.
Trainees are expected to present their research findings at research conferences (minimum 1 per year). Advise in preparing and finalizing presentations will be given.
Trainees are expected to become expert in the literature related to their research. This entails becoming proficient in daily reading the primary literature.

Graduate Stipend and Funding

As the advisor and mentor, it is my primary responsibility to ensure adequate funding for each trainee and their research.
As part of their career development, trainees are expected to prepare fellowship applications and to gain experience in these grant competitions. These experiences are an important part of each trainees career development as a researcher, and provide importance experiences that apply to a wide variety of career paths that a trainee may choose as they advance in their career path.

Meetings

Each trainee meets with me for a one-on-one meeting every week.
Each trainee will participate in weekly lab group and other research meetings, including other meetings relevant to a student’s research focus, fellowship funding, or graduate program.
Each trainee is expected to follow graduate program guidance of meeting with their committee annually.

Communication Skills: Verbal and Written

Trainees are expect to draft abstracts and manuscripts. Most predoctoral trainees need guidance and input along the way when they prepare a first-authored manuscript, as this is something generally new to them. Each student gets the guidance and input that they need in this process to succeed in preparing a complete draft prior to any significant edits being made to their document. This approach helps to ensure they learn and understand all that is involved in the process.
Public speaking skills in science communication is an important part of the career development of each trainee. Input and guidance in preparing an effective visual aids is provided, as well effective strategies for clearly and concisely communicating the key points that need to be made with each visual aid, as well as using effective approaching in connecting thoughts together to make for an interesting, thought-provoking, and exciting presentation.
The abilities and capabilities of each trainee is assessed, and the appropriate input, guidance and mentoring is provided to ensure that they continually improve their verbal and written communication skills while in training, particularly given how critical these skills are for subsequent successes in their career advancement.

Collegiality and Professionalism

Trainees are expected to be collegial and professional, in all their interactions (lab, program, etc.). Being a good citizen is the expectation of all lab members.
Trainees are expected to maintain a well annotated lab notebook. These records are owned by the UMN, not by the trainee, the lab or the mentor. The level of clarity needs to ensure that other lab members (current and future) can clearly understand and follow what experiments were done, how they were done, as well as the general conclusions drawn.
It is expected that trainees will be organized and efficient in managing their time, noting hard-and-fast deadlines that do not have flexibility.
Concerns regarding lab interactions are to be brought to my attention as soon as possible in order to address and resolve. If there is an issue approaching the mentor with a particular issue, the trainee is to approach a program director associated with the trainee’s program. There is a Student Conflict Resolution Center that serves as a central resource for trainees, if needed.

Professional Ethics

Each trainee is expected to maintain high standards of ethical behavior in their research and scholarship. This includes acknowledgement of required compliance with federal and institutional regulations in the conduct of research, as well as matters that are associated with copyrights.

Development of Independence

Each trainee is expected, over time, to develop general independence in their ability in being a primary driver of their scholarly research. Each trainee is different, and it is expected that the time frame needed for each trainee is to be tailored to their particular stage in their career development.

As their mentor, I am fully committed to being supportive, encouraging and respectful to the skills and abilities of each individual. I also commit to being accessible and equitable to each trainee.
My goal is to be the strongest advocate for each trainee in our research group during their career development in our research group. I remain fully committed to continue being a strong advocate for each trainee as they advance in their career path.

Career and Professional Development

Each trainee is fully supported in developing strategies for achieving their career and professional development goals, including my individually working with each trainee to help ensure that my efforts best position them for success in their career path.
Each trainee typically engages more senior lab members as well as external individuals and resources as additional sources of guidance in refining these strategies to further help to ensure success in achieving their career development goals while being a member of our research group, and positioning themselves strongly for future successes. I am committed to work with each trainee to develop and maintain a strong and robust career and professional development plan to maximize success.
Each trainee is expected to develop and maintain an individualized development plan (IDP).

Balancing Personal and Professional Aspirations

Each trainee is supported in maintaining a healthy balance in their personal and professional aspirations. This is important for helping to ensure psychological, social and physical health and well-being.
Trainees are encouraged to be aware of the UMN’s resources available to them for mental health and wellness.

Timeline to Graduation

On average, each predoctoral trainee is expected to advance in their career development in order to succeed in defending their doctoral dissertation in 4.5 years (PhD trainees) or 4 years (predoctoral dual-degree trainees) upon joining our research group.
On average, each predoctoral trainee succeeds in being able to publish 3 first-authored, peer-reviewed research publications as well as multiple co-authored research publications, along with first- and co-authored, peer-reviewed review publications.