As a mentors, you will enjoy the satisfaction of being involved in your community by supporting local teachers and school and knowing that they have made a difference in the life of a young person.
Students have the choice between requesting a mentor, finding their own mentor, or opting out of the mentor program.
A mentor should read the student’s project outline, his/her rough draft, and be in e-mail or phone contact with the student. The mentor may or may not meet the student in person. A mentor may also be willing to offer a tour, an interview, or job-shadow opportunity. BioExpo will strive to find a mentor for every student who requests one. We also encourage students to find contacts in the community themselves.
We emphasize the importance of professional behavior and prompt follow-through when interacting with mentors. We recruit many of the same mentors year after year, and those relationships are very important to us. Students need to communicate with their mentors within one week of receiving the initial contact from the mentor, or else risk losing the mentor to another student in need. Also, please have students contact us if they are having trouble getting in touch with their mentors.
Mentors that are matched with a student, must follow the Volunteer Policy of the School District the student is in. For more information, contact Uyen Lao, BioExpo Manager at ulao@shoreline.edu.
When projects are judged, students will be evaluated in a section called “Connections and Collaborations.” Judges will be looking at how well a student made use of available resources. Many students will do well in this section without a mentor, but having a mentor indicates initiative on the part of the student.
1. Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research. (online). Complete Mentor Curricula. Retrieved from http://cimerproject.org/#/completeCurricula
2. Howard Hughes Medical Institute. (2006). Chapter 5: Mentoring and Being Mentored. In Making the Right Moves: A Practical Guide to Scientific Management for Postdocs and New Faculty, Second Edition. Retrieved from http://www.hhmi.org/developing-scientists/making-right-moves
3. Kamens, J. (2014). Form Your Own Peer Mentoring Group: A How-To Guide for Scientists [blog post]. Retrieved from http://blog.addgene.org/form-your-own-peer-mentoring-circle-a-how-to-guide-for-scientists
4. Kuhn, C. and Z. Castano. (2016). Boosting the Career Development of Postdocs with a Peer-to-Peer Mentor Circles Program. Nature Biotechnology, 34, 781-783. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt.3631
5. National Research Mentoring Network. (online). Research Mentor Training. Retrieved from https://nrmnet.net/mentorship-training-programs/
If you are willing to be a mentor please signup using the following link:
