Effective Mentoring for PhD Students & Postdocs

Mentor Training & Professional Development

The

Effective Mentoring Program

A 7-week (long) or 2-week (short) training program with a mix of didactic lectures and group activities based on specific cast study discussions in peer-peer mentoring pods.

This program is open to PhDs & Postdocs from all STEM disciplines with priority registration for GPS-STEM members and T32 recipients.

Why Mentoring:

  • Effective mentoring is essential for early-career researcher success.
  • Strong mentoring boosts research output, career satisfaction, and retention.
  • Mentorship fosters independence and career advancement.

Why Join:

  • Expert Presenters
  • Hands-on Case Studies
  • Community of Peers
  • Certificate of Completion

What You’ll Learn:

  • Top Evidence-Based Mentoring Practices
  • What it means to be a good mentor
  • What to look for in a good mentor

Hosted by:

Special Thank to Our Program Collaborators

2025 Program Details

Who: PhDs & Postdocs

When: Tuesdays, 10a | October 14th & October 28th 2025

Where: NatSci I-1114

Limited Spots Available. Register Here by October 10, 2024.

Sessions: 

Session 1: Foundations of Effective Mentoring

  • The Role of the Mentor: Understand the responsibilities and impact of being an effective mentor.
  • Aligning Expectations: Learn strategies for establishing clear communication and mutual understanding with your mentees.
  • Utilizing Individual Development Plans (IDPs): Discover how to use IDPs as a powerful tool to ensure alignment between mentor and mentee goals.
  • Evaluation & Assessment: Explore methods for evaluating mentoring relationships using tools like CIMER (Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research).
  • Developing Your Mentoring Philosophy: Begin to articulate your personal approach to mentoring.

Session 2: Applying Your Mentoring Philosophy & Peer Feedback

  • Statement Review: Receive constructive feedback on your draft mentoring philosophy statements.
  • Small Group Breakouts: Engage in facilitated small group discussions.
  • Expert Feedback: Benefit from insights and advice provided by experienced faculty mentors leading the small group sessions.

More on The Effective Mentorship Program

Why Mentoring? Effective mentoring is critical to the success of early-career researchers. Strong mentoring has been linked to:
  • Enhanced mentor-mentee productivity
  • Career satisfaction & success
  • Independence in research
Despite its importance, mentoring is typically learned by example, trial and error, and peer observation. Given this approach, mentor capabilities are highly variable. Current mentor development and training contrasts sharply with the contemporaneous rigor of instruction and assessment characteristic of competency-based and practice-centered education.  In order to address the lack of structured mentoring, we plan to offer a comprehensive mentoring curriculum for early career researchers (PhD students, postdocs, research staff).
Mission: To ensure that everyone feels supported in their pursuit of satisfying and successful careers
Goals:
  • Offer standardized mentoring training
  • Best practices in mentoring
  • Build mentoring relationships
Outcomes: 
  • Training on best practices in mentoring
  • Improving mentoring culture/effective mentoring at UCI
  • Ensuring trainee success in research career as well as professional development
For more information related to the course, please contact the course organizers (below).
Harinder Singh, PhD., Physiology & Biophysics– Harinder.Singh@uci.edu
Vincent Caiozzo, PhD., ICTS – vjcaiozz@uci.edu
Brooke Piercy, ICTS – piercyb@hs.uci.edu
Kalani Shimmel, GPS-STEM – kshimmel@uci.edu

 

 

Success & Outcomes of 2021 course offering: Executive Summary