Valuing the Individual

I value my mentees as individuals by respecting and critically engaging differences while leveraging unique perspectives as assets to learning.

Beliefs, attitudes, identities, and prior experiences are crucial factors to an individual’s identity and to the learning process. I critically engage these differences to promote an inclusive and productive research environment. I utilize a mentor-mentee compact as a tool to facilitate introductions and to learn about individuals’ past academic experiences, goals, concerns, and other information to help me plan learning opportunities.

Encouraging Mentees to be the Best Versions of Themselves

I encourage mentees to be the best versions of themselves by promoting self-directed lifelong learning.

The research process develops skills that promote self-directed lifelong learning and has applications to many facets of life (beyond academia, research, or even professional expertise). Mistakes are productive and allow individuals to learn from failures–the value is in trying. I promote the metacognitive and reflective processes to cultivate self-directed individuals. I ask mentees to reflect on their work compared to others in the field, monitor their progress and evaluate their own strengths and weaknesses.

Creating an Environment where Mentees are Excited and Motivated to Apply What They are Learning

I foster excitement and motivation in my mentees by modeling enthusiasm and supporting natural inquiry and sense of autonomy.

I generate an atmosphere that is open, positive, and conducive to stimulate natural curiosity where mentees are eager to learn. I enhance mentee’s perceived relevance of research through my generally positive nature and excitement and modeling enthusiasm for the topic. I support motivation by providing mentees autonomy to choose research topics and questions that fit their interests and fuels their own excitement.

Teaching and mentoring involves engaging and interacting with students and fostering the next generation of professionals.

Whether learning new evidence-based strategies, playing review games, having impactful discussions, engaging an auditorium full of students or one-on-one mentorship, I look forward to growing within my student-centered teaching practice. Whether pharmacy students or graduate students, I bring my authentic self to the office and classroom daily and invite my students to do the same.

Students that are interested in working with me, whether for research rotations or a longer-term project, are encouraged to read my mentorship and diversity statements and email me.