Keeping the Curiosity: A Conversation with Dr. Jen Heemstra Artwork

Mentoring Matters

Welcome to "Mentoring Matters" the podcast where professors Stephanie Hansen and Mary Drewnoski share their expert insights on how to excel as a mentor. Join us as we tackle the challenges of mentoring graduate students and offer actionable tips for building community, enhancing communication, and fostering a culture of learning within your team. With years of experience and hard-won wisdom, Hansen and Drewnoski will provide the guidance you need to succeed in your mentoring endeavors. Tune in to "Mentoring Matters" for valuable insights and advice on mentoring graduate students.

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Mentoring Matters

Keeping the Curiosity: A Conversation with Dr. Jen Heemstra

November 16, 2021 • Jen Heemstra • Season 2 • Episode 10

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Emory University Professor Jen Heemstra joined us for a conversation about strategies for success as graduate student mentors. We also chatted about ideas for faculty development and ways we can foster strong mentors.

A few things we talked about:

Fear of failure, why we as mentors should bring the same level of curiosity to our mentoring as we do to our science.
Individualized development plans for students that have nothing to do with their research and everything to do with their career goals.
Avoidable vs. unavoidable struggles and how to encourage resiliency in our teams.
Structure, structure, structure. Did we mention, structure?

Jen and Steph bonded over sharing our personal writing journey with our students (and Jen's stoked to try writing sprints with her group!) Jen’s writing a book, so look for that in 2023! Steph published a fiction novel in 2021. Steph’s author world is at www.slhansenbooks.com

You can follow Jen and her lab on Twitter:

@heemstralab

@jenheemstra

For actionable tips and strategies for mentoring please check out The Graduate Mentor's Trail Map available in paperback and ebook now!

If you are enjoying this podcast please leave a rating or review, and join us over on Twitter to let us know what topics you'd like to hear more about.