Junior Faculty Mentorship

As our Junior PIs embark on a new adventure of leading their labs, they lack fundamental training in, for instance, lab management and mentoring of our lab members. Importantly, as faculty, how we act, behave and address our staff, students, post-docs and colleagues is a major factor in determining the climate of our Department and the Yale School of Medicine which in turn impacts scientific discovery and productivity.

To accelerate the acquisition of these new obligatory skills and to make sure that the community at large can profit from this, there are number of approaches available at Yale that several faculty have participated in, which have had a major effect on our ability to mentor our lab members and enhance productivity. We invite you to both attend and be an active participant in driving the below forums as well as initiating new ones that you think are most appropriate for your development.

Yale Medical School sponsors three-day course from the HFP Consulting Company on effective approaches towards lab and time management. The course covers numerous topics including time and priority management, giving and receiving feedback, hiring and firing, and tools for managing conflicts and crises.

Organizational psychologist Dr David Berg helps hone mentoring skills by discussing group dynamics and conflict-resolution strategies within a group environment. Through the experienced lens of Dr. Berg, participants will appreciate the true complexity of issues that can arise within group contexts and learn to approach problems from an organizational standpoint rather than an focusing on individuals. These discussions provide tools to help PIs tackle challenges that can arise in a lab environment and learn how to overcome them in an open and effective manner to build happier, healthier labs.

Lunches occur once a month where Yale junior faculty representing 15 different departments at Yale meet with peers and more senior Professors to discuss a variety of issues relevant to running a lab, from how to effectively mentor the people in our labs to how to write grants. To further foster mentoring and networking, junior PIs come together at an Annual Retreat at Yale. To have the latest updates on both forums contact the Dean’s Office.