Fellows

Benefits of Mentorship

  • Obtain career-related advice
  • Build your network
  • Develop rewarding relationships
  • Grow your clinical & translational skills
  • Understand your strengths & areas for development
  • Gain professional confidence

Apply Now!

Eligibility

Junior faculty, post-docs and clinical fellows at a Georgia CTSA partner institution (Emory University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Morehouse School of Medicine, and University of Georgia) are eligible to participate.

Time Commitment

Approximately 2-3 hours per month for the length of the program.

Expectations

Individuals selected for the program are expected to:

  • Attend three required events (kickoff, mid-year, and graduation)
  • Actively participate in monthly learning community meetings remotely or in-person
  • Meet for at least one hour per month, remotely or in person, with your assigned 1:1 mentor

Fellows will be challenged to “drive” the relationship with their 1:1 mentor to ensure maximum benefit.

Application and Selection Process

There is no limit to the number of nominations from each institution, but final selections will be made to ensure diverse representation across the Georgia CTSA and will be limited to 20-25 individuals.

Apply Now!

Fellows Toolkit

At the foundation of every successful mentoring relationship is goal setting. By defining and sharing your goals with your mentor you can help focus your interactions and create tangible outcomes.

No matter how you define your goals, aligning expectations is critical to the success of all mentoring relationships. These tools will help you clarify expectations, achieve goals, and establish agreed-upon guidelines for you and your mentor(s).

Remember, it is important to regularly discuss if you and your mentor are still in alignment!

Tools developed by

  1. University of Wisconsin-Madison Institute for Clinical and Translational Research

Are you a good fellow? Are you putting forth your effort effectively? The first step in being an effective fellow is self-reflection. Understanding your own strengths and weakness will help you more effectively communicate your goals to your mentor. Georgia CTSA TEAMS fellows are encouraged to complete the Mentee Self-Assessment Worksheet designed by Washington State University and use the insight gained to leverage your mentor’s skills and expertise.

Additional mentee self-reflection tools are listed below:

After you have engaged in self-reflection, it is important to know what will be expected of you from your mentor.

Additional articles on how to be an effective fellow are listed below:

Tools developed by

  1. University of Wisconsin-Madison Institute for Clinical and Translational Research
  2. Insala Talent Development
  3. Forbes
  4. Harvard Business Review

Communication is one of the key factors that determines the success of a mentoring relationship. Being a good communicator will not only improve your mentoring experience, but it will also be useful in many other aspects of your career.

Learn more about how to develop effective communication skills and listening skills by viewing the tools listed below:

Tools developed by

  1. Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine
  2. University of Wisconsin-Madison Institute for Clinical and Translational Research
  3. Psych Central
  4. Ian Brownlee

Are you experiencing any conflict within your mentor-mentee relationship? Are you having trouble with matching the communication style of your mentor? Is your mentor providing inadequate or too much direction? Are you seeking guidance on how to constructively address the issues you may be facing with your mentor?

Are you experiencing any conflict within your mentor-mentee relationship? Are you having trouble with matching the communication style of your mentee? Is your mentee placing inadequate effort towards building a strong relationship? Are you seeking guidance on how to constructively address the issues you may be facing with your mentee?

Here are a few resources to help resolve mentoring challenges that arise:

Also, remember you can always contact the program coordinator or director to discuss any concerns that you have about your mentoring relationship!

Tools Developed by

  1. Oregon Health & Science University, School of Medicine
  2. University of Wisconsin-Madison Institute for Clinical and Translational Research
  3. Raymonda Burgman

Science is becoming more and more team-based! Translational scientists play a key role in many aspects of science, ranging from basic science, to clinical trials, to development of public health initiatives. Watch the Role of Translational Scientists or read The Fundamental Characteristics of a Translational Scientist from the National Institute of Health (NIH) to learn more.

Working in an interdisciplinary team can be challenging. The thought of bringing together people from different backgrounds and careers can be intimidating. Here are tips and resources on how to make this concept a successful possibility:

Not only do you want to create an interdisciplinary team, but you want to create a high functioning interdisciplinary team. Read 5 Ways to Build a High-Performance Team featured by Forbes.

Did you know the Georgia CTSA celebrates Team Science by awarding Team Science Awards of Distinction? View Team Science Awards criteria.

 Tools developed by

  1. Carrie Bader and Margarete Jaeger from Pacific University
  2. Nancarrow, S. A., Booth, A., Ariss, S., Smith, T., Enderby, P., & Roots, A. (2013). Ten principles of good interdisciplinary team work. Human resources for health, 11, 19. doi:10.1186/1478-4491-11-19

Diversity, Diversity, Diversity! Science is science - so sociodemographic characteristics such as age, gender, and culture shouldn’t matter, right? Wrong! Scientists from different backgrounds, different races or ethnicities, and different career paths can have very different perspectives. They may ask different questions, have different methodologies, and offer different techniques. All these differences equate to better science!

The first step to addressing diversity is understanding your biases, especially unconscious biases. Try out these self-assessment tools listed below to learn more about uncovering sources of biased thoughts and behaviors:

Next, check out these videos, Mentor Training to Improve Diversity in Science2 and Mentor Training to Improve Diversity in Science1 developed by the National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN) to provide training on the enhancement of culturally sensitive mentoring.

Another helpful resource is Creating and Maintaining High-Performing Collaborative Research Teams: The Importance of Diversity and Interpersonal Skills featured by The Ecological Society of America.

Tools developed by

  1. Love Has No Labels
  2. Anti-Defamation League

Relational boundaries are important in a mentoring relationship. Once these boundaries are set it is crucial that both the mentee and mentor respect and abide by them. To find out how to set boundaries, take a look at Setting Boundaries in Mentoring Relationships developed by the NIH.

If you need clarity on what constitutes harassment, please see the U.S Department of the Interior article: What are Discrimination, Harassment, Harassing Conduct, and Retaliation?

For more information on relational boundaries and harassment, please view the following resources listed below:

Tools developed by

  1. American Psychological Association 
  2. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine
  3. Des Moines University

Having a career in science is not all about research and working in laboratory settings. To be successful you must also be skilled in time management, running meetings, and networking with other professionals.

Here are a few tools to help you with your own professional development:

Tools developed by

  1. National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN)
  2. NY Times
  3. Forbes
  4. University of Georgia
  5. TED- Ed
  6. Irene S. Levine, American Association for the Advancement of Science

Tools developed by

  1. Robert Lefkowitz
  2. University of California San Francisco
  3. Columbia University
  4. University of Michigan